


The House of Witches

by LaLicorneRose



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Education, F/F, F/M, Loss of Innocence, Multi, Self-Discovery, Witch Hunts, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 57,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22077343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaLicorneRose/pseuds/LaLicorneRose
Summary: 1690s Greendale - in the midst of the witch trials held in Greendale, an innocent Mary Wardwell is charged with witchcraft and the corruption of the children.When she is saved at the last moment from her impending death sentence, she is welcomed into the Spellman's home for safe-keeping.But she is not prepared for what it is she finds inside...
Relationships: Faustus Blackwood/Zelda Spellman, Hilda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, Hilda Spellman/Zelda Spellman, Sabrina Spellman & Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith
Comments: 302
Kudos: 293





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KatyaTrixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyaTrixie/gifts).



Part 1

It was senseless. She thought warily as her finger traced mindlessly across the bars of the window. To be persecuted this way. For something that she had not done.

It figured. She laughed pathetically to herself. That her life should come to this.

_The practice of witchcraft and the dark arts. The seduction of a minor. The corruption of youth. The teaching of pagan material._

The charges were harsh. Severe and demanded her life.

She realized the migraine that had arrested her head had somehow dissipated, as if her body had given in to her fate. Her muscles were loose. Her stomach sunken. She’d refused the pathetic bread they’d offered her.

It had been a week.

A week of public humiliation preceded by months of public ridicule. Whispers behind her back, the hushed voices as she’d walk by. Mary Wardwell, the school mistress, a secret witch, a seducer of children.

She had not done a thing they accused her of. Just because she lived alone in that cottage, away from prying eyes and ears. The way that she preferred. Just because Sabrina had come to her home after school that one day and then continued to escort her home...

Sabrina was only a girl. A darling young woman with a mind to rival Mary’s own. Mary made her tea and cookies and loaned her books that the little school did not own. Books that had tales which existed long before the tales of the Bible.

Sabrina read them, vehemently, rapidly, wanting more. Spread out atop Mary’s couch, cookie crumbs littering the surface, feet resting atop Mary’s legs as they read together.

Perhaps if Mary had insisted that she not rest just so.... perhaps if Sabrina’s little boyfriend, Harvey, hadn’t come by that day to get her.... well what did it matter now?

It was the end.

Mary’s head fell against the wall. Resigned to her fate.

“Ms. Wardwell.” Her eyes shot opened.

She saw a hooded figure on the other side of the bars, illuminated by the blaze of torches. Her visitor smelled of deep musk and roses. Hands lifted to the edge of the cape, Mary’s eyes followed the delicate fingers, watching as Sabrina’s aunt, Zelda Spellman, was unmasked before her.

But how had she arrived? Mary hadn’t heard the door to the cells open. Had she been asleep?

Zelda held forth an apple. It gleamed in the dim glow of torchlight. It looked so deliciously clean and unmarred. But Mary’s brow furrowed, for she did not really know this Spellman woman, nor did she trust her. For Mary was charged with corrupting her niece. For all Mary knew she could have poisoned the apple to finish her off quicker.

“Oh, take it. I know that you’re starving.” Zelda’s voice was low and rough. “I haven’t hexed it, if you’re worried about that.”

Mary’s eyes went wide. Was she a mind reader?

“Please.” Zelda’s voice softened, holding it out again. “I have some bread that Hilda made and some cheese to give you if you’d just take this apple. I can’t stand here holding it all night.”

There was something in her voice that Mary trusted. She stepped a bit closer, her mouth watering at the sight of the fruit so close to her. She reached out and took the apple, examining it. What difference did it make if she were to eat it and die or not? She was dead either way.

She bit into the apple as Zelda watched. Pleased.

“Good girl.” Zelda praised her ridiculously. For they were no more than a year apart in age and neither Mary nor Zelda were a girl.

Mary was so mesmerized by the perfect apple that she did not pay attention to the cell door opening and Zelda entering with the basket of food. It was only when she caught a whiff of the freshly baked bread that she realized Zelda was looking her over, examining the cuts and bruises that the chains had left.

“Listen to me, Mary. I haven’t much time.” Zelda whispered as she placed her hand over a deep gash that had been made by a chain about her wrist. By a guard that liked to handle her a bit too roughly. Mary’s eyes widened as she watched the cut disappear beneath Zelda’s touch. “I know that what they charge you of is a lie. You are no witch.” Zelda continued to examine the marks on her arm, to tend to each calmly, efficiently. Her hands were warm, alive with some inexplicable force. It frightened Mary, watching as she was as her outward scars faded away.

Zelda met her frightened gaze, staring serenely into her eyes. “No, you are not a witch, but I am. And so is the man who persecutes you. Judge Blackwood is not a mortal man, but he holds his position in polite society to ensure that no one finds out.”

“But he...but witches...”

“I know this is all very confusing, but he owes me a favor. You will not be charged with anything. You will be free tomorrow.”

The thought of freedom now felt so foreign to Mary that it seemed like a trick. She was being fooled. “You can’t possibly expect.... but I....”

“Ms. Wardwell...Mary, if I may...Sabrina thinks very highly of you. She’s sick at the thought of what has happened. Personally, I commend and respect you for what you teach her. And I know that you.... though perhaps you have had those sorts of feelings.... would never have done anything that she did not want.”

“I would n-never!” Mary gasped.

Zelda smiled. “I know that. You needn’t defend yourself to me.”

Mary stared at Zelda bewildered. “Why...”

Zelda caught Mary in her arms, forcing her to look at her. “I refuse to see someone die for something she did not do. These people are making a mockery of witchcraft.” There was a sound in the hallway that seemed to frighten Zelda. “I must go. But tomorrow, tomorrow you will be free.”

And just as quickly as she had come, she disappeared. Mary sat shocked, stunned for a moment at the sudden loss of Zelda’s presence. She had been warm, consoling and now she was here alone again. Behind these bars, in this sad, disgusting pit of filth so that she collapsed, tears sliding from her eyes in confusion.

Could she truly trust Zelda Spellman? She had seen her every day at the trial looking pieced together, perfect, sitting rigidly, primly beside Sabrina. Callous, unemotional.

But she had seen the emotion only moments before…perhaps she was not so cold.

But what of Judge Faustus Blackwood and his unfeeling eyes? The way he ridiculed her on the stand, badgered her for her supposed witchcraft, for ruining the town’s children. How could he be a warlock?

Since when were there warlocks and witches anyway? She had read of such things, but they were works of fiction at best...

No, she could not get her hopes up. To be rescued by a witch! No...it couldn’t be. The God she had been taught to worship had put her here, had decided to take her life. He wanted her to die, didn’t he?

Death would at least alleviate her from these sins, these fears she harbored deep down inside that she had never expressed before. This want of hers to live a life alone, away from others. Because she couldn’t stomach the thought of living some kind of lie. She had already let Adam down all those years ago. Because she hadn’t been strong enough to live a life with him.

And how had Zelda known that she had had those kinds of feelings? Zelda was a spinster herself, of course. So perhaps she knew…but she could not _know_ how it was Mary truly felt. How hideous and ugly she was inside.

Her head spun as she laid atop the dirt and strands of hay. The food Zelda had brought rested in its basket, untouched. Her stomach hurt. She could not bare to eat the bread despite its enticing aroma. She seemed only capable of smelling its delicious yeasty odor mixed with the lingering fragrance of Zelda Spellman. The scents swirled together in her mind as she lay half-asleep, half-dead the rest of the night.

* * *

“In light of evidence which was brought to me late last evening, I find that the claims which have been brought against you do not stand. I cannot find you guilty of the charges placed against you.” Judge Blackwood looked almost bored by the ruling.

The towns people called out loudly, crying in protest against him. He had to slam his gavel several times, yelling at them to be silent. And finally a hush pervaded, Mary’s stomach in knots.

Judge Blackwood continued. “Though I am freeing you, you are sentenced to no longer teaching the children of Greendale as it would be irresponsible of me to place you in such a precarious position. I think that is fair, wouldn’t you say?” And with that he raised an eyebrow, brought his gavel down hard. The sound reverberated in the chamber.

Mary’s legs quivered beneath her. She went light-headed. She collapsed.

It was in Zelda Spellman’s arms that she found herself when she came to and Sabrina and Hilda Spellman looked on, concerned. There was a great roar of protest and upset and confusion around them.

The men of the court had no option but to free her. And there was the guard that had looked at her with a look of disgust and lust who begrudgingly freed her hands, roughly. He did not notice that his wounds had been healed about her wrists. Healed the previous night by Zelda, who had looked at her neither with hatred nor lust...but something else.

The guard looked the most unhappy with this turn of events as he yanked her arms free of the chains. As if he had wanted, _needed_ her dead. He left fresh wounds in her flesh, but the pain hardly registered. For she was free. She was free and yet she was not.

She felt the outrage around her, hurled at her from all directions. She was a spectacle and her death had been highly anticipated. Now there would be no show.

She was frozen, unknowing as to what it was she should do next.

A hand fell lightly against her arm. She turned, bewildered, to find Zelda. The older woman enveloped her in her steadying embrace. “You’re coming with us.” She whispered and Mary found herself surrounded by the Spellmans. A protection, a shield. They somehow managed to get her through the crowd unscathed and then escorted her to their home on the hill.

She had never been to the large, dark house, had only seen it from the road on her way to and from the school house. Upon entering its elegant front foyer, a wave of relief washed over her and she very nearly fainted again. It was Hilda who pushed their bodies together and caught her. “There, there love. Let’s get you up to bed so that you can rest.”

Mary could not understand this strange hospitality, but she was too weak to complain, to question it. She allowed herself to be taken to a room, tucked into bed and then she dozed on and off, slowly drinking soup that Hilda patiently fed to her until her body began to understand its normal functions again.

It felt like no time at all and yet an eternity when she awoke blurrily to see the dull blaze of sun which marked the mid-afternoon. She sensed that she was no longer alone, either. Turning, she found Zelda sitting in a chair beside her bed, book in hands, but staring directly at her as she awoke.

Her savior. More beautiful up close and personal like this. In the sunlight. Her hair shown red, like fire against the sun, wrapped up atop her head. Her lips were a deep hue of pink, she smelled again of that floral musk that Mary had spent the evening in her prison cell inhaling. It had been her only sense of calm, of encouragement and now here it was again on the other side of the whole ordeal. 

“How are you feeling?” Zelda inquired, reaching out to place her hand atop Mary’s forehead, as if a mother taking her child’s temperature.

“Better.” Mary’s throat was hoarse from too many tears and too much time without speaking, from screaming in the night when she had been reminded of her death sentence. Only now...she was free. “How did you...”

“Please.” Zelda held up her hand, dismissing the whole thing as if she hadn’t just saved her life. “I will hear nothing more of it. But....I would feel much better if you might stay here. With us. I think for now it would be safest.”

Mary conceded, for she could barely raise herself to sit up. There would be no leaving any time soon.

“Rest now.” Zelda whispered, tucking her back in.

And her eyes closed, as if she’d been cursed to sleep. And she slept like the dead, waking again when there was no sun.

The light of the fireplace danced about the room, illuminating the space. There was a pull of disappointment at the fact that Zelda was no more present. Instead there was silence.

Mary listened to the quiet house. It felt somehow mysterious, as if it held all sorts of worlds of which she knew nothing about. There was a warm flow of energy that made her skin tingle, washed over her, relaxed her back into the bedsheets which so contrasted the hard floor she’d made her bed for the past week. No, this was much preferable and yet…it was the home of witches. Of real witches?

She heard the soft patter of feet outside the door, coming down the hallway. She wondered what time it was, who might be awake at this hour.

The doorknob began to twist and fear shot through her body, momentarily anxious by what it was that might be on the other side.

But it was only the soft blonde head of the darling, young Sabrina. Sneaking into her room. Her eyes caught Mary’s, widened when she saw that she was awake. “S-sorry.” Sabrina whispered in the evening, paused between entering and running away.

“It’s alright. Come here.” Mary dragged herself up in the bed, motioning for Sabrina to come to her.

The girl smiled widely. She silently closed the door behind her and moved to the bed, climbing up at the foot of it. She had come with a book which she held between her hands. “I…I was worried about you. I thought I’d come sit with you and read.”

Mary felt the corners of her mouth lift, felt herself smile for what felt like the first time in days. She reached out, patted the girl’s leg.

Sabrina smiled bashfully back, ran her finger along the spine of the book. Her face dropped just as suddenly as it had warmed. “You don’t…you don’t blame me, do you? I feel that it was all my fault and I’m so-sorry… “

“No.” Mary sat up a bit straighter. “No, it was neither of our faults. Don’t even think that.” She leaned forward, tucked a strand of Sabrina’s hair behind her ear, cupped her cheek and forced her eyes upwards. “This town will always look for someone to martyr. I was an easy target. It had nothing to do with you.”

“But if Harvey…if he hadn’t told his father…”

“They would have found another reason.” Of this Mary was certain. There had been whispers before all of this. A woman alone was a threat.

Sabrina nodded, smiled a bit shyly. “I am glad, though, that you’re here. Now. I wanted it…I wanted you here.”

Mary should be dead and yet here she was.

How curious it all seemed. Saved by these people whom she hardly even knew, saved by this young girl who looked up to her, perhaps revered her as she had revered Sister Angelica at the orphanage… Of this she understood.

“Come here, come read to me.” Mary held out her arms and Sabrina climbed into her embrace, fitted easily into her side. She wondered if this was what it might feel to have a child, a family. It was foreign to Mary and yet felt surprisingly comfortable.

The girl’s body was warm as she easily snuggled in close. “Aunt Zelda thought you would want to read this book. It’s about our history. Well,” Sabrina’s brow furrowed, “about her and Auntie Hilda’s history. It’s only half my history.”

Mary regarded the book curiously. Bound beautifully in skin colored leather, it bore the name _The Unholy Bible_.

A chill raced down her spine.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

Dirt buried her, kept her pressed down beneath the Earth’s surface. The weight of it rested on her chest, her lungs incapable of expanding. She clawed at the dirt, fought to move upwards, to find the light of day, to inhale, to breathe again.

She felt arms at her shoulders, pushing her back and she grasped, fighting for her life.

Her eyes were shaken open, forced to acknowledge the light of day and she gasped, inhaling air into her lungs, realizing then that she was not underground at all, but in the Spellman’s home and Hilda Spellman was holding her, trying to calm her down.

“There, there, love. It was only a dream. You’re alright. You’re safe here.” She helped Mary to relax back into the bed and wiped at her sweaty brow until her body calmed down.

Mary’s breathing slowly shallowed again. Her mouth was dry, eyes wide as she looked to Hilda.

Hilda smiled kindly. Her eyes glittered in the morning light, warm and compassionate. Something Mary so rarely saw, but it was there inside Hilda. Hilda Spellman who was a witch. Who worshiped a false God. And yet there was more loveliness, more godliness in her warm ministrations than Mary had ever witnessed or received in all her years of Catholic schooling, attending mass each Sunday…there had never been warmth like this.

She took Hilda’s hand in her own as if needing the contact, surprised by her own forwardness. Yet Hilda did not pull away, only clasped her hand tighter.

A tear slid down Mary’s cheek.

“Oh, love.” Hilda wiped it away.

“I should be dead.” Mary whispered.

“No.” Hilda shook her head. “You’re safe now.”

Mary laughed hoarsely. “Am I? They’ve made a fool of me. I can’t…I won’t be able to teach anymore. I have…I have nowhere else to go.”

Hilda squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry about these things now. You’re always welcome here with us.”

Mary stared uneasily at their combined hands.

Welcome in this home? This home that was spoken of as rudely as she had been over the past few months. This home which was cursed, was gossiped about with fear and disdain. How many times had she heard rumors about the goings-on of this place…and yet being inside of it felt more a home than anything else had in her life.

So, they were witches. But what did that mean?

Hilda’s eyes sparkled. “Don’t you worry. Here … I’ve made you some breakfast.” Hilda patted her hand, the contact lost so that she could retrieve the tray she had brought. It smelled heavenly, the food placed before Mary. And for the first time in days she found she was hungry enough to eat it.

Hilda sat with her, watched as she ate. And for the moment she thought nothing more of her strange predicament.

* * *

Hilda had told her to take it easy, to stay in bed.

But she was restless. Her mind raced through fits and bouts of sleep. She had lost track of the day, of the time. She only knew that she was alive and yet what for? She had been spared, but had somehow been cursed at the same time.

She was now living amidst these witches and could she truly trust them? She knew of the old town folk lore, but had never thought it actually existed. Until now. And they had so readily trusted her with this information, as if they knew she could sympathize. They did little to hide their true identities before her.

And though the Spellmans were kind to her, she was uncertain about where their loyalties laid. For why would they have saved her when the allegations had been brought about because of their own niece? And if they were truly _good_ witches, then what might Judge Blackwood be since they were of the same ilk? Was he also a good witch? Mary could hardly consider the way in which he had treated her to be good.

And what was it that Zelda had over Judge Blackwood that she could sway him to release Mary?

No one, who had been accused of such things as she had been, had ever been released or set free. What had been different about her?

She rolled over in the bed and stared out into the pitch black of night. She shuddered, thinking about what might lay outside the glass panes. Who might be waiting for her, hoping to destroy her.

She felt stuck, for she was damned if she left and possibly damned if she stayed. But…thus far the Spellman home had felt safe. She felt she could trust it, for now.

Her legs longed to stand, to move about. She could lay no more. Her body had regained its strength and with it the need to move, to stand, to stretch. It was sometime in the middle of the night yet she could not stay still another moment longer.

Throwing back the blankets, her feet met with the cool wooden ground. She was wobbly on her feet at first, until the sensation of standing, of moving forward was regained, remastered.

She paused near the fireplace, staring at the portraits on the walls. Were these images of a young Hilda and Zelda? Who was the young man also seen with them? Would that be Sabrina’s father?

Mary listened, found that the house was silent. Not a peep could be heard. It would be late, then. Well past midnight.

She did not wish to wake anyone, but she felt caged in, felt the need to breathe fresh air outside of this room.

She pushed open the bedroom door, careful not to let it creak. The hallway was softly illuminated by candles that flickered in the evening breeze. Her feet hit the floor silently, careful not to make a sound as she padded down the hallway. She stopped to look at the paintings of the family. Of people whom she did not recognize, of generations going backwards.

They looked as any family might. She could not detect any special magic or witchcraft just by seeing their images rendered in paint. At least they were a family, at least they came from something. Unlike herself.

There was a noise somewhere down the stairs. Her heart pounded in her ears and she froze, wondering if she should return to her bedroom. But she paused on the threshold of the stairs. Leaned ever so slightly forward to see if the sound might come again.

There was only silence. She hesitated, stepping forward, moving slowly down to the main level.

An unfamiliar scent met her when she reached the bottom of the stairs. She inhaled again, a memory igniting. It was like the incense of the cathedral.

But why ever was it in the Spellman’s home?

There was the noise again.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

Mary’s heart pounded deafeningly in her ears. She should turn around, she didn’t have the right to be wondering about like this…

But something pulled her forward. A curiosity. A need to know.

She stepped slowly forward, peering around the corner.

There were candles. Candles illuminating the room, floating, floating in mid-air! They surrounded the two elder Spellmans who looked in the midst of something curious and magical. The air grew warmer the closer Mary crept. She felt drawn towards them, towards this pull of magic, found her body moving as if it had a mind of its own. And she came to stand before the circle, watching as Zelda’s fingers traced down the page of a book, listened as her deep voice sounded the foreign words on the page. And she looked to find Hilda holding two jars of what looked like blood and nails. And the sight of it made her want to turn, to vomit.

She must have made a sound, for the candles swiftly fell to the floor and the eyes of the Spellmans were then upon her.

She covered her mouth, uncertain as to whether or not she was in trouble, if she had done something she should not have, seen something that was forbidden.

But Zelda merely chuckled. “I hope we didn’t wake you.”

Mary shook her head, words lost on her lips.

“Oh, don’t be frightened love.” Hilda cheerily sat down the jars she held and wiped her hands, moving to stand. “These are only for protection. We were blessing them so that we might plant them around the house. It’s not human blood, oh no. This is from a deer Zelda killed a few days ago.”

Mary’s eyes flashed from the jars to Zelda who looked quite pleased with herself. Zelda closed the book she had been holding and moved to stand up. “We must look after ourselves, after all.” She breezily explained.

Hilda smiled, put her arm through Mary’s and angled her towards the kitchen. “How about a nice cup of tea, hmm? That might help settle your mind.”

Mary, stunned, followed Hilda into the kitchen. It was only when she was seated at the table that she found words. “That’s…that’s practicing witchcraft?”

Hilda looked up from lighting the stovetop. “Hmm? Oh, yes. Yes, we have little rituals.”

“You can move objects…you can…you kill…”

“Oh, mainly animals.” Hilda lightly interjected as Zelda entered into the kitchen. Mary watched as the sisters looked at one another. A secret conversation passed between them.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” Mary stuttered, feeling quite out of place.

“No. It’s quite alright.” Zelda’s hand fell against Mary’s shoulder, calming her. Immediately.

Zelda took a seat at the table near to Mary, lifted a wooden box from the center of it and opened the lid. Mary watched as she methodically pulled a small sheet of thin paper out and placed it before her on the table. Reaching into a bag, she lifted some dry leaves that had a sweet scent to them, and placed it at the center of the paper. With expert skill, Zelda rolled the paper about the leaves and licked it closed, forming some kind of compact cylinder. She placed the object between her lips and lifting a match from the box, she struck it against the table and lit the end of the paper on fire. Mary watched as Zelda inhaled. A cloud of grey-blue smoke escaping from between her lips.

Zelda’s eyes met Mary’s through the smoke. Held, suspended for a moment.

“Here you are, love.” Hilda sat a steaming cup before Mary, pulling her attention away from Zelda.

What had she gotten herself mixed up in?

* * *

The book rested beside her bed.

She examined its spine, the faded detail of its leather, hard-worn, weathered. In the morning light she felt drawn to its skin. Her hand reached out, the pads of her fingers touching the binding.

A shock raced through her body.

She pulled away, staring at the book curiously.

What had that been? Some witch’s enchantment? Was she not meant to touch this sacred book?

Yet, Sabrina had left it there for her. Hadn’t she? Zelda had insisted.

Reaching out again, she touched it lightly but felt nothing. Perhaps it had only been in her mind, some early morning dream. Her body was not yet awake.

She picked the book up and let it fall open atop her lap. The pages fell flat before her as her Bible might have. Her Bible which she sought consolation and comfort from, but only ever found useless passages that did little to assuage her.

Would this Unholy book offer her anything better?

Her eyes skimmed the page which had been revealed to her. Her finger traced down the satiny page, until the words began to sort themselves into coherence and her eyes widened at what it was she read.

_He who loves one shall love others. To take warlocks and witches as lovers is the right of the witch. To be sexually gratified and satisfied is not only a right but an obligation to feel at one with the Dark Lord who rejoices and triumphs when you are true unto yourself and your sexual appetites. Nothing is appalling to the Dark Lord, least it be consensual. Everything is permissible, for the witch and warlock live long lives and must explore every realm of possibility. They must feel every sensation and explore with unbridled passions._

_Should a witch find another witch enchanting and the other witch is willing, it becomes their duty to pursue and combine their flesh. Two witches or two warlocks make the most loving pairs and this is exalted and praised by the Dark Lord._

_Two, however, may not be enough to satisfy the witch. It is encouraged and praised to find others to unite the flesh with as the body is designed to give and receive, to touch and be touched by all who are worthy of it._

The book slid from her hands, as if it had burned her flesh.

She was warm, flushed. Her body on fire. What was this madness? It was an abomination upon what was natural, wasn’t it?

And yet her body felt more alive than it had in years.

Her legs shifted restlessly together, the book falling to the floor, closing tight.

She couldn’t stay in the bed a minute longer.

If she did she might sin against her own flesh. The nuns had taught her not to give in, not to touch that sacred place. And she obeyed. Obeyed, because it had been easy. She had let that all but die – having feared it so, especially with Adam. She had never felt it come alive with him so she thought it did not exist. Thought it had been a childhood enchantment that faded with age.

Up until this very moment.

That book…that book was blasphemous.

Mary stood on unstable legs, moving to the window. She needed to see the _real_ would outside this madness. And there was the sun rising on the horizon, christening the tree tops with radiant light. Peaceful, calm, serene. The pond lay listlessly stretched out before the Spellman home, not even a ripple marring its surface. Everything was at peace. And yet, her mind raced a mile a minute.

There was a vase of irises sat before the window. They were a gorgeous violet. Her curious fingers reached for the sheeny petal, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. Her finger slid over the veins of the petal, towards the stamen.

An image flashed before her eyes, of lips, of kissing, of sparkling greenish-blue eyes, of soft amber hair, of hands, of flesh upon flesh, of swollen nipples, dark skin upon light.

The flower was thrust from the vase, landing coldly against the floor.

Her body burned, was set on fire.

Would everything arouse her like this?

She wanted to get away and yet she knew she could not leave this house. Not when so much had happened outside of it. And yet, what was happening inside?

She heard something downstairs, could smell the makings of breakfast, the stirring of life.

There was a certain safety in the thought of the younger Spellman, whom Mary knew would be cooking. Yes, she could go to Hilda, certainly. Couldn’t she?

Mary wrapped a robe about herself, willed her body to cool as she opened the door to the hallway which looked less enchanting than it had the evening before. The portraits had not changed, nor altered but they looked less mesmerizing. The candles were unlit, the light of day guiding Mary this time to the stairs.

She walked the sunlit path to the kitchen and found Hilda humming to herself as she busied herself with the cooking. She did not seem to notice Mary’s arrival to the kitchen at first. No, it was the brusque snapping of paper that brought Hilda’s attention away from the stove, her wide-eyes colliding with Mary as Mary found herself looking into curious dark eyes over the edge of a foreign looking newspaper.

Zelda was at the table already. Looking at her.

“Good morning, love. It’s nice to see you up and walking about. I was just about to make Zelda an egg, might I make you one as well? Please, have a seat.” Hilda was ushering her to the table, settling her across from Zelda who continued to look at her over the Wöchentliche Zeitung aus mancherley Orten.

“Did you sleep well?” She watched Zelda’s lips form the words. “I hope we didn’t disturb you too much last night.”

Her nipples hardened of their own accord and her cheeks grew warm. She crossed her arms over her chest. “N-no.”

Zelda’s eyes fell from Mary’s lips to her arms about herself. “Good.” And then she returned to her reading.


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3

It was becoming like clockwork.

This awakening at some odd morning hour. She could not be certain of the time, but she sensed it was the same time as it had been the night before and the night before that.

And she knew it was well past a decent hour for visitors and yet…there was the distant sound of voices. A presence that could be felt throughout the house. A certain energy that felt masculine, heavy.

She didn’t like the way it sat with her.

The unfamiliar voice came again, lingered in her ear drums.

She was wide awake and knew that it would not do to lay in the bed, listening for little clues as to who it was. No, she felt herself rise, curiosity overtaking her. This house with its peculiarities was getting the better of her. And she had not been punished as of yet for her piqued curiosity. If she tip-toed just so she might be able to sneak down the stairs and discover just who was in the Spellman home.

The candles flickered in the hallway, seemed to shimmer more brilliantly as Mary slid past them. She heard voices in the front foyer, hushed in the thickness of the night air.

She dared to edge closer, bare feet lightly falling against the first step, then the next.

She could make out the whispers, heated as they passed from person to person.

It was first Zelda’s voice that she recognized. There was the hint of the smoke which had billowed from Zelda’s lips nights before floating through the air. It smelled of cloves and tobacco; it was becoming familiar, comforting.

But whom was she talking to?

The other voice was lower, rougher. It was a man. She edged closer, careful to stay in the shadows.

“…can’t have her here. It’s irresponsible, Zelda.”

“Oh, Faustus, really. She has nowhere else to go now. You’ve made certain of that.”

“I did what I had to in order to protect our kind. And now you’re harboring her.”

“We both know she’s not a threat.”

“It’s still suspicious, wouldn’t you say? For the family of the poor, innocent little girl who was sullied to take in the woman who preyed upon her.”

“Ha! A predator. Really, Faustus. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Ah. Mary’s heart slammed against her chest. Judge Blackwood. Was in the Spellman home.

“That may be so, but she was becoming too conspicuous. I should have gone through with the original sentence.”

Mary clasped blindly at her throat. The pain, the fear racing back to her. The thought of being placed in a noose at the center of town for all to see her naked body dangling there. Dead. The image flashed in her mind.

Until she heard Zelda’s chuckle at Judge Blackwood’s words, the laugh low and gravely.

The threat was past.

“And yet, you didn’t seem to mind that bit of evidence I brought to you. I do wonder what your lovely Constance would think of it this. It’s unfortunate she couldn’t…”

“Leave her out of this, Zelda…” There was a shuffling, a rearranging of bodies, the sound of breathing.

Zelda laughing. “I don’t have any _evidence_ for you now.”

“It’s unkind, Zelda.”

“What’s that, Faustus?”

Mary heard rustling, something thumped against the wall. The intake of air.

Silence.

Mary’s heart sped up. What was happening? Was Zelda alright?

“Don’t.” Zelda’s voice had grown fainter. Something in the quiver of the word made Mary’s knees weaken.

She edged closer, needing to see, needing to know that the elder Spellman was not being harmed.

Her own breath caught in her throat at the sight of Zelda pressed into the wall, Judge Blackwood’s hand about her throat, stroking the delicate skin with the pad of his thumb.

Mary had the impulse to lunge forward, to attack this man.

But she froze. For instead of fear, there was an amused gleam in Zelda’s eyes.

There was movement, a rustling of clothes. His hand fell against the wall by Zelda’s head.

“You don’t get to just…summon me whenever you find it amusing. You don’t…you don’t know what it is you do to me, Zelda.” Judge Blackwood breathed intensely.

“Oh, but I think I do know.” Zelda’s lips caressed his ear.

Mary felt weak, light-headed. Zelda was…what was it that Zelda was doing? There was movement but Mary could not see past Judge Blackwood’s coattails. And for what? Why was Zelda so brazenly standing up to him? It sounded to Mary that he still wanted her dead and yet…Zelda had given him something that saved her.

He grunted, grasped at Zelda, turned her so that she came before him and then he was pushing her down.

Mary fell back into the shadows, clasping her hand over her mouth to stop herself from gasping.

Her legs trembled as she moved down the hallway, back to the stairs, the ground, the walls shifting and twisting around her. She had no real recollection of how she made it back to her bedroom, but she found herself breathing heavily against the closed door of the room, gasping for air, for some sort of stasis to return to her.

Why would Zelda do that…with him…

It was burned in her vision. The look in Zelda’s eyes. What it was she had been doing to him…

Her eyes opened wide, fingers clasping onto the trim of the door as if needing something to grasp onto.

Oh, and what was this? But this was not an appropriate response to seeing what it was she had just witnessed. No, she should be mortified and yet there it was.

The sticky moistness that slid down the soft skin of her inner thighs.

It was not safe to return to the bed.

She folded into herself, sliding down the door until she was curled up on the ground, arms wrapped around her knees.

And still the image would not go away.

Would they still be downstairs doing…that…and what if Sabrina were to awaken and see her Aunt in so precarious a situation? It was reckless out in the open like that, too unbridled, too free…

Mary rocked back and forth, fingernails digging deep into her skin.

She stared out the window before her to the calm, still night, to the waning moon in the sky. The outside world stayed the same and yet nothing was the same. Least of all inside this house.

* * *

Her neck hurt.

The sun was shining brightly when she opened her eyes.

There were the floorboards before her. The rug that covered part of the floor.

She shifted, coming up onto her elbow. Her body called out in pain.

How had she ended up on the floor?

She caught sight of the angry fingernail marks on her legs as she moved to sit up and it all came flooding back to her.

In the innocent light of morning she saw it all again. And she responded beautifully, horrifically to it.

She needed to calm her body for this was getting out of hand. These things that were reawakening inside of her. She felt out of control with wants she had never before known she possessed.

The house was stirring. She could not stay in this room and yet she was afraid to leave it. For if she were to go down for breakfast she would see…but if she did not go down they might fear that something was wrong. And something was not wrong. No, nothing was wrong.

Mary was on the floor.

She pushed herself forward, coming up onto her hands and knees.

She would go to breakfast because she could not let them, least of all _her_ , know that she had overheard, seen anything out of the norm. She was meant to be asleep. That midnight madness had been meant to be a private conversation, a private moment.

Yes, she was not supposed to be involved in anyway.

She would piece herself together and she would go downstairs and pretend as if nothing were out of sorts. That she was not living in a house of witchcraft and debauchery and all sorts of other unspeakable things that made her chest flutter, made the space between her legs come to life.

She wrapped a robe about herself as if needing armor against what she was about to face.

Her pulse pounded in her ears as she rounded the familiar corner to the kitchen. She paused briefly, caught out by the sight of the now empty wall in the foyer. She saw the way Zelda’s hair had fallen over her shoulder as she’d leaned into Faustus.

Mary’s pulse quickened, mouth dry.

She felt arms wrap about her from behind, a body pressing into her and she gasped in surprise. Her body tensed in response and the hands fell away from her waist but still held her in their grasp.

She turned, heart pounding, shocked. But relief washed over her when she found Sabrina beaming up at her. “Why are you just standing there? Come on! Auntie Hilda made my favorite pancakes.” Sabrina’s innocent little smile seemed to break the spell.

Mary patted her shoulder, eased her away from her too alive body. Sabrina took her hand and led her into the kitchen and Mary braced herself to see Zelda seated at the table, hidden behind some foreign newspaper, but the table was empty. She felt a rush of relief race through her body.

It was only Hilda at the stove. Hilda looking up, pleased and delighted at Mary’s appearance. “Good morning, love! I hope you slept well.”

Slept? There had hardly been sleep. “Y-yes. Very well.”

Hilda came to her side with a plate of blueberry pancakes fresh off the stove. Mary must have been staring questionably towards the seat normally occupied by Zelda for Hilda added, “Zelda went to town. She’ll be back soon enough.”

“Oh I…” Mary’s cheeks flushed bright red.

Hilda’s hand fell reassuringly against her shoulder, squeezed lightly, then released.

* * *

Zelda was smoking in the sitting room when Mary ventured down that afternoon. Her chest constricted. She hesitated on the stairwell, footing uncertain.

Zelda looked up from a thick book she had been reading. Her eyes met with Mary’s, a little smile played at her lips. “Hello.”

Mary’s fingers slid down the rest of the banner until her feet hit the sturdy hardwood of the ground floor. “Hello.”

Zelda closed the book over her hand and placed the rolled tobacco between her lips again. “How are you getting along? Settling in alright?”

Mary kept her distance, preferring to stay against the wall near the bookcase. Her eyes blindly skimmed the titles of the books. She hummed. “Yes. Though…” she turned to look at Zelda again and saw great amusement – was that pity? – in her eyes. No, she didn’t like it if it were pity that she saw.

“Though?” Zelda drawled through a cloud of smoke.

“I hate to think I’m imposing.” The words came out evenly and for that Mary was proud of herself.

Zelda regarded her again, sat forward to crush the burning paper into a plate at her side. Smoke floated from her mouth gracefully. “You’re not imposing, Mary. We enjoy having you here.”

She remembered the words that had been spoken in the late-night conversation which she should not have heard. They haunted her. Judge Blackwood’s words had held some truth. What Zelda and the Spellmans were doing for her…it seemed reckless to the outside world. “But the town…”

Zelda laughed. The sound of it sent a shiver racing down Mary’s spine. “I don’t care what it is the town thinks of me or of my family. They should know that you are innocent of whatever ridiculous claims that were brought against you. Especially if we welcomed you into our home, so near to our niece.”

Mary’s cheeks colored at the mention of it, the implication of this falsehood. “I would never…I…” Mary slid into a chair across from Zelda. “She’s just so very curious about everything and I wanted to help her, to show her…”

“What you did was commendable. I know Sabrina. I know that mind of hers.” Zelda smiled easily. She reached out, placed her hand briefly atop Mary’s knee, patting her lightly in assurance.

Her skin burned through layers of skirts and petticoats where Zelda’s fingers had come briefly to rest. Mary bowed her head, unable to meet Zelda’s gaze. “What you did for me…how you saved me…” The words felt mangled in her mouth, for she intuitively understood what it was that Zelda had done for her, yet she also did not. But, she wanted to be certain. She wanted to know so terribly…

“Sabrina came to me very upset by all of it. I felt it was my obligation, you see. To make it right. Besides,” Zelda crossed her legs and sat back, “I didn’t do anything that I didn’t want to.”

Mary sat back and found Zelda’s eyes, the wind knocked out of her when they connected. Zelda’s gaze was innocent, wide in the light of day. A pleasant smile curled on her lips and Mary felt her stomach twist.


	4. Chapter 4

Part 4

Sabrina was curled up on the settee beside Mary reading from a book of astrology. This book would have been banned in the town of Greendale, and yet it seemed the Spellmans had access to a plethora of banned reading material. There were no limits here. They read voraciously and well from what Mary could ascertain.

Sabrina glanced up from the page she was on, catching Mary staring at her. Mary’s cheeks burned red. Sabrina did not seem to notice, nor care. The girl smiled widely, shoved her feet up under Mary’s leg and turned the page.

The contact was strange, to be so close to her former pupil in this way. She wondered how it was that Sabrina viewed her? Another mother – as if she didn’t have enough of those! - ? Someone she looked up to? Or was it really a childish crush?

She supposed that they had become close like this over their time before the world had interfered. Only now Sabrina seemed to trust her more than before because Sabrina could truly be herself in her home. She did not have to play the role of pupil, Mary the teacher. Here they could be two people who simply existed together. Neither had to be anything other than what they were.

Yet, Mary was uncertain as to what it was she was meant to be in this place.

“When you said that _The Unholy Bible_ was only half of your history, what did you mean by that?” Mary dogeared the page she was on and more fully turned to the girl.

Sabrina closed her book and twisted her legs so that her skirt slid up her thighs ever so. “My mother was not a witch, but my father was. So, I’m a half-breed. Or so my Auntie Zelda says.”

The mention of “Auntie Zelda” made Mary’s chest warm. She busied her hands with pulling Sabrina’s dress more appropriately over her lithe frame. “I see. And what does that…mean, exactly?”

Sabrina frowned, her face scrunched up in thought. She finally shrugged. “I’m not really sure. We won’t know until my dark baptism.”

Mary’s eyes widened. “Dark…baptism?”

Sabrina nodded, “yes, it happens when a witch or warlock turns sixteen.”

“I see.” Mary nodded, though she did not.

She remembered her own baptism. At six years old. Thrust into the Catholic orphanage that, she supposed, saved her. She recalled that horrid priest who had held her too closely as he’d blessed her with holy water and claimed her for the Catholic Church. She had had no say in it, no choice as to whether or not she submitted. But she could not have remained in that orphanage without this holy cleansing. Without it she would have remained unclean, impure, uncared for on the streets.

If only her mother had kept her, if only…

“Do you miss them…your parents?” Mary questioned, seeking a compatriot in her abandoment.

“Yes. But they died when I was so young…I don’t…I don’t remember them.” Sabrina worried her lip. "Auntie Zelda and Hilda have always felt like my parents." 

And Sabrina was lucky to have her Aunt Zelda and Aunt Hilda. For they had given her this home, this life, this sense of security and belonging... Mary nodded sadly, lost in her own thoughts of the parents she had never had.

She was surprised when she felt Sabrina crawl towards her, fold herself up into Mary’s arms as if knowing just what it was she needed. Mary held the girl tightly, allowed herself to press a gentle kiss to the crown of Sabrina's head. Sabrina snuggled in tighter.

Mary held back the frustrated tears that threatened to fall at the overwhelming sensation of _home_ that inevitably stirred up the fear and uncertainty that it would all come crashing down around her. As it always had before.

* * *

She almost anticipated it. This middle of the night awakening. Her eyes snapped open, brain suddenly wide-awake.

And she was almost relieved for there had been impious visions dancing around in her dreams. Things which she wished were not so vivid in her mind, so very real to her subconscious. Red-hair and fiery eyes that burned green. The smooth spans of milky-white skin on a neck laid bare to her, the caress of a hand, the swell of a breast.

Her mind raced with the images, unable to comprehend, to accept them. She sat up in the bed, shifted and rolled to remove her body from the warm cocoon of blankets.

She needed to cool off.

She moved to the seat by the window, sitting down to catch her breath, to let the sweat on her brow cool in the chilly night air.

It was torture. To live now so near to this woman and to be tormented by her in the night like this.

Mary looked at her hands where they had come to rest atop her knees. They were clenching the fabric of her nightgown, tight and taut, digging into her skin beneath the thin material.

She felt as if she were going insane. Perhaps it would have been better to have died than to live like this…suspended in some strange limbo with no release, no way out. For if she were to leave the Spellman’s home she would be ridiculed, probably even killed.

But living inside this home was another kind of death. A death that felt more painful. More personal.

Her eyes came to rest on the bed. She felt it call to her, invite her back to its warm, softness.

But she could not give in. Not in this state. 

Perhaps she might fix herself a nice cup of tea. She had watched Hilda do it enough mornings, certainly it would not be so hard to slip down the stairs and tend to it herself for once.

She stood on unsteady legs, pressed an ear to the bedroom door and waited.

Silence.

The house was still, quiet.

For once.

She turned the knob of the door, glanced out along the candlelit hallway. No sight of anyone, no further sounds. The air in the house was tranquil.

Mary gathered her courage enough to move forward, to make her way to the stairwell, to descend to the even quieter main level. She moved deftly through the house, a certain comfort creeping into her bones for she had now inhabited this space for the better part of two weeks. She was familiar with its structure, its spacing, its objects. They had become mundane, known to her.

She lighted a candle off the dying hearth fire and as she turned to place it atop the table to search for the tea kettle, her eyes caught on floorboards in the corner of the kitchen.

Light. There was light emanating from beneath the floorboards.

Her heart pounded in her ears.

What was this?

She stepped forward, careful not to make the wooden floorboards squeak as she edged forward.

Her ears perked up to unknown sounds emitting forth from beneath the floor, so that she knelt down, sitting the candle atop the floor so that she could place both her hands on the wooden planks. She leaned forwards, drawn like moth to flame.

Her eye found a crack between the floorboards.

It took a moment for her to register what it was she saw. The edge of a red satin covered bed. And then stocking clad feet came into view, one stretched out long, the other bent at the knee. Body twisting, legs shifting, coming together again drawn up together, twisting from side-to-side.

The stockings wound up elegant legs…until they stopped right above the knees. And then…then it was milky skin.

There was the sound of metal rubbing against metal, a dissatisfied groan.

Mary shifted, turned her head so that her eye could follow the line of the body upwards and she nearly fell backwards at the sight revealed before her. Legs fell open, parting prettily and there was that which was forbidden laid bare before her eyes. Swollen, silky pink velvet. Mary couldn’t breathe, forced herself to continue forward to a taut milky white stomach, the pink peeks of two pert breasts. Lush red hair splayed out all about the satin pillow, those knowing eyes closed in a frustrated peacefulness as her hands pulled at chains above her head. Chains that kept her in place, rendered her unable to shift, to move more than her frustrated legs.

Zelda Spellman. Laid bare before her. Tortured. Was she being harmed?

She should not be seeing this, had no right to it, to watch as she was and yet she could not move away. She wanted to go to Zelda, to free her from this humiliating position…but then she saw him.

A young man came into view, as naked as Zelda. Mary could not help but look over his fine, muscled body, his toned back and shoulders. Mary watched as Zelda’s eyes opened to him, watched him as he let his fingers play over her swollen nipples. Mary observed, transfixed, as Zelda shifted into his touch, but then he backed away. Laughing.

And then there was a glorious woman, dark skinned and as naked as the others. Zelda’s eyes came open wide to her, her body moving to her as she leaned down with her full lips to Zelda’s and Zelda lifted her head to her. The younger woman kissing Zelda before pulling away so that she might run her tongue over Zelda’s bottom lip. And Mary watched on as their breasts touched, dark nipple to pink, kissing.

Their bodies tangled together, taking and giving torturing, teasing. The three of them an odd group and yet Mary could not take her eyes away, could not look from what it was that these people did to Zelda and as she watched them stroke her and kiss her and touch her she felt as if it were she who was carrying out these motions. It was she who pressed a kiss to the inside of Zelda’s thigh, it was she who let her fingers glide through slick wetness, it was she who pinched Zelda’s nipple, she who bite at her lower lip until she whimpered.

A moan escaped from somewhere and Mary realized, to her horror, that it had been from her own lips.

She fell backwards, knocking the candle over so that it went out. She caught it before it could roll over the floorboards, make any more noise than it already had. She hoped that Zelda would be too far gone to have noticed, to have heard.

She was mortified for having indulged, for having watched as long as she had so that she stood on shaky legs and moved quickly through the house, heading straight to her room, closing the door, breathing ragged and uneven as she collapsed, again, against the wooden surface.

She was too far gone, she could not hold herself back.

The bed called to her and she could not stop herself, sinking into its welcome surface.

She clawed at her nightgown, the material too thick, too hot, too much against her screaming skin.

She could see her own nipples in the night, hard and dark and aroused. She palmed the left one, fingers sinking into the soft flesh about the nipple and she gasped out, head turned so that her moan was stifled by the pillow.

Her legs worked together, unfamiliar wetness pooling between them and she feared that she might be bleeding so that she reached down. A gasp emitted forth from her lips when her fingers grazed against her swollen center. She pulled her hand away and stared at it in the moonlight. It was not blood.

Her hand shook. Her legs were shaking.

Everything was not as it should be.

Her hand moved between her legs and she gave in. Gave in to years and years of ignorance, ignoring, pretending as if she were dead. She moaned, quietly, aware that she was not dead, had never been dead, but had been lying dormant, waiting for something, someone to wake her up.

And she was awake now. Fully awake.

Her eyes shot open as her body shook, violently. Ripples of pleasure washed over her. She felt as if she were stepping into a cooling stream on a hot day. 

She fell back against the bed, breathing heavily, hand coated with herself, sweat pooling beneath her breasts, at her brow.

A sense of peace, of calm washed over her. Until the image of Zelda returned to her again and the fever overtook her body until she quelled it over and over again…

The birds were chirping and the sun was peeking over the horizon when Mary finally rolled onto her stomach, exhausted.

She slept through breakfast that morning and Hilda pronounced her ill with a fever and told her to stay in bed all day. She complied, relieved to not see Zelda that day for the shame of it was overwhelming.

What had she done?


	5. Chapter 5

Part 5

The sunlight poured through the window of the main sitting room.

The sounds and smells of morning permeated through the home, reached her senses. The smell of eggs, the sounds of voices, the clatter of plates. Life, normalcy.

Mary’s hand lingered on the banister, frozen as she was wondering if her secret was obvious. For she felt it in her legs, in the quiver of her stomach, the discomfort of the fabric that brushed against her inner thigh.

But … it would be rude, wouldn’t it? To stay hidden away. She could not be ‘ill’ for eternity, she could not hope to avoid the inevitable. Inevitably she would see her again. It was not as if the house were all that large – as far as she knew. She could not hope to walk about like a ghost, invisible and unseen.

The thought of awakening to find the elder Spellman near to her, perhaps even sitting at her bedside now haunted her, caused her to startle awake at odd intervals, broken out in a cold sweat, relieved when she found herself alone. She decided it might be better were she to face her surrounded by the other Spellmans because to see her alone…

She heard the low rasp of _her_ voice somewhere off in the kitchen, something mundane spoken in response to Sabrina.

There was a not entirely unpleasant pulse that surged through her body and she nearly turned, almost ran right back up the stairs. But it was Hilda who appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, caught Mary’s frightened eyes and smiled. “I thought I heard someone up and about. It looks like you’re feeling better. Come, come have some eggs and toast. The bread’s fresh from the oven. Come on, love.”

Hilda beckoned her to the kitchen and Mary could not turn now. She had been caught out.

She could not meet Zelda’s eyes upon entering the kitchen, instead chose to keep her head bowed as Hilda clutched her arm and escorted her to her seat. She could not look at Zelda but she could sense that Zelda watched her every move over the top of her newspaper.

Sitting was uncomfortable. She felt her cheeks grow warm, watched as food was placed before her. She had no appetite.

“Are you feeling better, Ms. Wardwell?” Sabrina, unphased, innocent, beamed at her.

“Uh,” Mary swallowed, for some, inexplicable reason, afraid to speak. Zelda was still watching. “Yes, yes. I am.” She lifted her fork and moved a piece of egg across the plate. Her eyes fell on Sabrina’s sweet smile. “You…you know.” She leaned towards the girl. For the girl was safe. “You can call me Mary now. I’m no longer your teacher.”

Sabrina’s smile widened at this allowance. Her lips formed a pretty little ‘O’. “Mary then.”

Zelda snapped her newspaper, the shield lowered so that she might turn the page.

Mary’s eyes fell to Zelda, drawn in by the motion. Their eyes met and she felt the sensations begin again.

“I’m very glad to hear that you’re feeling better.” Zelda offered. “I hope we haven’t been keeping you up at night. You must know that I have terrible insomnia.” The words were spoken so simply, the tone blasé even.

Oh. “N…” Mary coughed. “No. I haven’t...I…haven’t noticed.” Mary’s throat went dry. She reached with shaky hand to grasp for the water cup in front of her.

It did not help that Zelda’s eyes followed this motion as Mary lifted the glass to her lips.

Hilda was at Mary’s side, placed a hand on her shoulder. Mary watched as Zelda’s eyes traveled to look at her sister, a somewhat docile look overcoming her as something passed between them. The back of Hilda’s hand went over Mary’s forehead. “I think you may still have a fever, love. Perhaps you should go on back to bed.”

“But I…” Mary felt ridiculous, being treated like a child. She was perfectly fine, wasn’t she? The fact that her legs were glued against one another did not mean a thing. “Yes, perhaps…”

But she saw Sabrina staring, worried, in her direction. Sabrina pushed her half-eaten breakfast away from her and looked up at Hilda. “Auntie Hilda, can I be excused to go with Mary and read with her?” She glowed at the ability to speak Mary’s name as if she were one of the adults.

“Go on, love. Make sure Mary gets tucked in nice and tight.” Hilda agreed. Mary stood, unable to look at Zelda again. Though she could tell that Zelda’s eyes were no longer upon her. But it was Sabrina’s little gangly arm that hooked through Mary’s and the feel of it jolted her, surprised her. The little body pressed against her own as they made their way up the stairs together was disconcerting. Worse when Sabrina easily fitted into her arms in the bed where she had…

She made Sabrina read to her from her favorite passages of _The Unholy Bible_. The story of Lilith.

* * *

Her body lay rigidly in the bed. Her arms held straight at her sides, fingers balled into fists.

It was the image of Zelda naked that arrested her mind. Made her lose touch with her surroundings, kept her body taut and on edge. And no matter what she did, it didn’t make the longing go away.

So, she grasped at some sense of control. For if she could go back to before she had given in, if she could stop herself from giving in each time the want overcame her, then perhaps she could erase _those_ images from her mind.

But swollen pink folds fondled by a careful hand flashed through her mind and she grasped tighter at the sheets.

It was hopeless.

There was a knock at the door. Her eyes went wide, scrambling to arrange herself in the bed, to sit up, to wipe off the flush of her brow. For if it were…she couldn’t…

“Mary, love. It’s – it’s me. I brought you some tea.”

Ah, Hilda.

Her body relaxed against the headboard. “Yes, come in.” She called, fluffing her pillow as Hilda opened the door. The aromatic blend of almond rose tea welcomed her, soothed her.

Hilda closed the door behind herself and came forward with the tray. She placed the tea on the bedside table and sat herself on the edge of the bed.

Hilda looked at Mary instead of pouring her the tea. Mary looked to Hilda. It became evident that the tea was a ploy.

Hilda’s hand reached out to smooth over Mary’s brow. “How are you doing, love?”

Mary bit at her lip, eyes downcast, staring fixedly then at her fidgeting hands. She hardly recognized them – old as they were now, wrinkled beyond comprehension. When had her body begun to break down? Especially when she felt more alive inside of her skin than she had ever before in her life.

She rubbed at her wrist, finding that it was swollen, a dull pain throbbed in the joints. Her cheeks warmed again as she realized just what had led to that pain.

“I’m…fine.” Mary whispered.

Hilda laughed a bit, readjusted herself so that she was closer to Mary. “It’s certainly alright to not be fine. You’ve been through quite a bit of recent and I know that coming here is not…well it’s certainly something different.”

Mary’s eyebrows rose at the statement. Hilda could not possibly know how very _different_ it was inside the walls of this house, of _her_ home. All the things Mary had seen, all the little things she had never known existed…she had been living her life so chastely, so dead for all these years. This house was waking things inside of her that she had never known existed before and it had only been a matter of days.

She was not certain she could go on like this, feeling the way she felt, with nowhere to go other than this room that she had about herself now.

But there was, at least, Hilda’s kind eyes. Eyes that seemed to read Mary’s mind, appeared to have followed her inner dialogue.

Hilda reached out and took Mary’s hand, clasping it tightly between her own warm hands. “You can tell me, love. Whatever it is.” And she knew in that moment that Hilda knew exactly what it was.

Mary squinted, kept her eyes focused on the soft skin of Hilda’s hands. How youthful they were in contrast to her own, how very warm and welcoming they felt. “I’ve never…” Mary took a deep breath, foolish tears stinging at her eyes. “…never felt…this. Before.”

Hilda patted her hand. “It’s quite natural, normal even to feel…that.”

Mary shook her head. “No, it’s…it’s not.”

Hilda held her hand, listened in the silence.

Mary picked at the quilt beside her, subconsciously holding Hilda’s hand tighter as she did so.

It was quiet enough to hear the clock in the front foyer of the home. Clicking, keeping time.

“I don’t know what comes over me…I can usually control it. I can…forget. But when…” Mary looked up at Hilda, uncertain as to how much she could say, how much she should say. For it was unnatural, the thoughts that swirled in her mind, and yet she had watched it play out so naturally before her own eyes only a few nights before.

Mary could not say it. Would never dare say it. “What is it about this house?”

Hilda gave her a gentle smile. “It’s not the house, love.”

Mary’s pulse quickened, cheeks warming _again_. Hilda knew.

Hilda took her hands from Mary’s gently and turned to pour the tea. “It’s quite alright, what it is you’re feeling. Sometimes it takes us awhile to wake up to what it is we truly want.” She handed the tea cup to Mary and clasped her hands about Mary’s hands in the process, forcing her to look at her. “Try to stay open to it. Trust that you’re safe here to do or feel whatever it is that you are.”

Mary stared at Hilda, both comforted and yet frightened. No one had ever given her this permission for such freedoms. It made her heart race, her chest tighten.

Hilda patted her cheek. “Drink the tea. It will help soothe you. You’ll be good as new in no time.”

* * *

Her body awoke of its own accord and she turned over onto her back.

She stared up at the ceiling.

She was wide-awake.

Remnants of her dream floated into her conscious. Sunlight playing in red-hair, spread out atop a pillow, the delicate softness of porcelain skin beneath her fingers, light touch, a play of shadows and lights.

She had skipped dinner the evening before, unable to face _her_.

But every fiber of her being longed for another glimpse. To see the length of her milky white skin, the taut pink peaks of her breasts, the soft, roundness of her that was a juxtaposition to what it seemed hidden beneath layers of black fabric. How severe she appeared in the light of day, how innocent she was laid out, bare.

Mary wondered…if she were to venture to the kitchen now in the dead of night…would _she_ be hidden away beneath the house again? Would she be tied again to the bed, her mystery lovers tending to her?

The vivid image of it flashed through her mind, played out again and her legs shifted against one another at the memory.

Was it wrong to want to see it all again?

She felt perverse, this need welling up inside of her, bringing her to sit up in bed, to put her legs over the edge.

The moon was shining, full and bright through the window. It felt blinding, catching her out, following, watching her every move so that she almost did not remove herself from the bed. The moon watched her, seemed to know her every thought. Every last dirty, terrible thing.

The images raced through her mind again.

Perchance it would not happen again that evening, possibly Mary could explain her journey through the hallway and down the stairs and towards the kitchen on a need for fresh air, for a glass of water, perhaps.

She came to a halt at the precipice of the kitchen.

There it was. The light from below shining out, beckoning her closer.

And she obeyed, felt her feet carrying her to the crack in the floor where she kneeled, almost reverently and braced herself for what it was she may see.

But what it was, she was not prepared for.

Zelda sat coyly on the edge of the bed, legs spread wide. But her skin, that delicious skin was hidden beneath a pristine white sleep gown. The thin material, however, did little to mask her soft pink nipples, which were hardened and pressing at the cotton material. Her hair, that hair, fell about her face, softly grazing the exposed skin of her shoulders.

But her eyes were intently focused upon something, someone.

Someone else spoke then. “I’ll be very disappointed in you.”

The voice chilled Mary to her very core, for that…that was…

“Why is that, Sister?” Zelda’s voice was sweet, airy.

And then she appeared as if from the shadows.

Hilda.

And Mary could not look away, not when Hilda moved to stand before Zelda. Her body seemed to bend before Zelda, one hand pressing against the mattress at Zelda’s side, the other gathering the material of the nightgown. “I’ll be very disappointed if you’ve dirtied them.”

“But I…” Zelda played coy, helpless as she allowed Hilda to push at her garment, as the flesh of her thighs was exposed. Their faces were close to one another, they paused to look at one another and Mary could see the depths of Zelda’s arousal, her want written in the darkness of her eyes that seemed only able to look submissively at her sister.

_Her sister!_

Mary’s hand went to her mouth, but she found she could not tear her eyes away. Not when Hilda’s hand – the very hand that had cupped hers only hours before – slid up Zelda’s inner thigh, disappearing beneath the nightgown. Mary watched as Zelda’s eyes went wide, her body shifting as Hilda reached her desired location.

“Just what I thought.” Hilda sighed, exasperated. “I’ll have to wash them again. Take them off.” She stood up, held out her hand.

Zelda pouted. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You never do.” Hilda shook her head. “Off they go.”

Zelda grunted indignantly, shifted on the edge of the bed so that she could remove her silk stockings from beneath the gown. She held them out as if a trophy for Hilda. Hilda took the stockings, examined them intently. “I’m very disappointed. You’re always making messes of everything. Always dirtying things so that I have to clean up your messes. It’s rather unfair, isn’t it, Zelda? Hmm?”

Zelda leaned back on the bed, her eyes alight as if she enjoyed this chastisement. She let her exposed legs shift from side-to-side like a fidgety little girl might. “How will you punish me?” And she looked as if she enjoyed the prospect of this, of being disciplined. 

“Wash them.” Hilda threw them in Zelda’s face. “They smell repulsive.”

And a basin appeared before Zelda, as if thrust out of thin air, filled with soapy water. Zelda peeled the stockings from her face, placing them in the water.

Hilda stood, watching. Mary watching her watch, watching as Zelda sank down on her knees, sinking her arms into the bubbly surface of the water. And she washed the stockings, not removing her eyes from Hilda’s face as she did so.

“Keep scrubbing them.” Hilda moved to examine her work, fisting a handful of red hair in her hands and pulling as she did so. Zelda’s eyes slid closed for a moment, her hands stilling in the water. “Don’t stop.” Hilda threw Zelda’s head forward. Zelda worked faster, suds wetting the front of her nightgown, her breasts more and more visible through the thin material. “You’re ruining your gown.” Hilda scolded.

“Yes…it’s wet.” Zelda agreed.

“Take it off.” Hilda commanded.

Zelda made quick work of it, exposing her naked body to the chilly night.

“You always make such a terrible mess. You’re so sloppy. Wash that, too.”

And Zelda - naked and exposed to both Hilda and, unbeknownst to her, Mary – complied, began washing both garments together.

“Get up. Get back on the bed.” Hilda’s voice impatiently sounded. The basin appeared to disappear.

Zelda was on the bed in a matter of seconds, waiting for Hilda’s further command. Hilda who sounded so emboldened in the night, so very different from her docile, gentleness. If Mary had witnessed anything over the last few weeks, it had been Zelda talking down to Hilda, but this…this was some strange role reversal, some sort of nighttime madness. Perhaps Mary was still dreaming, perhaps she was not truly watching as Hilda climbed onto the bed with Zelda, coming up behind where she sat on her knees. Perhaps Mary did not truly hear as Hilda whispered, “I bet you’re as dirty as your knickers.” And perhaps Mary did not really see when Hilda’s hand wrapped about Zelda and touched the place between her legs.

Zelda’s eyes slid closed at the contact. A dissatisfied moan admitted forth when Hilda removed her hand and brought it to her nose, to her lips to taste. “You’re filthy.”

“Make me clean then.” Zelda purred, collapsing down onto the bed, rolling onto her back, legs spread open for her sister who looked at that place between Zelda’s legs with such a wanton gaze – the spell breaking as Mary realized what had just played out before her, and what was about to happen if she stayed a moment longer.

Mary knew she should turn, to return to her room. She knew she should not watch and yet she could not look away from it. Her image of Hilda – wholesome and loving and docile – disintegrated as the younger Spellman’s mouth did things to the elder that Mary had never considered doing. Reality distorted and shifted beneath her, shattered any remaining illusion of understanding the world about her.

It was wrong and yet it was not. It was unnatural and yet it unfurled before her as naturally as could be.

Her body shook with her own orgasm long before Zelda gasped and wrapped her legs tightly about Hilda.

Mary had to twist, to turn and remove her eye from the crack in the floor. She curled into a ball on the kitchen floor in order to catch her breath. But she knew she could not stay there all night. She knew that she had to get up, she had to get back to her own bed. She could not be caught out, not like this. It was too indecent this.

She stood on shaky legs, careful not to make the floorboards squeak as she pulled herself back to her bedroom and into the bed where she stared, wide-eyed, up at the bedroom ceiling.

No, things were certainly not what they seemed in this house.


	6. Chapter 6

Part 6

The birds were chirping in the stillness of the morning. It was early, she could tell by the fog that had yet to lift from off the sprawling front lawn of the Spellman home. She wrapped the robe about her tired body, stood at the window watching as the mist danced across the pond, stroked the glassy surface like a lover.

A lover Mary had never before had and yet in the Spellman home her imagination was ignited, ran wild with the fantasy of it. The sensation of touch, the feel of another came to her in fitful, restless dreams. It felt so real, as if it had all happened to her before and yet…

Her body ached and no matter how she attempted to assuage it, it was not enough.

The house was well and truly silent. She was sensitive enough to its moods that she knew it was too early for even Hilda to be working away in the kitchen.

The images had plagued her, her insatiable want made her body restless. Her confusion about what was truly happening in this home haunted her. She had thought she knew who these women were, but they were not who they, at first, appeared to be. And could she trust them? Hilda, Hilda had surprised her. Hilda’s presence in that room…

Perhaps she needed to get out, to get away from this room, this house, that basement…

She may not be welcome in the town, but certainly she could step outside this home. It had been far too long, nearly a month, since she had walked outside. Perhaps the fresh morning air would help to cool her burning skin.

Mary was now adept at moving quietly, silently through the home. She opened the bedroom door without any hint of a sound. She glanced out, listened in the quiet morning and found that no one was stirring. She stepped quietly over the threshold, moved towards the stairs.

She stopped dead in her tracks before she reached the stairs, frozen in place by what it was she saw before her.

No, it could not be.

No, it was absolute madness, a morning enchantment, perhaps Hilda had placed a mirror at the end of the hallway for there she was. Standing before herself. Looking directly at herself.

And yet the eyes before her were not her own, were looking at her just as intently as she was looking at them.

Mary’s eyes closed and opened as if needing to be certain. But she found nothing.

Her heart pounded loudly in her ears.

What had that…but certainly she could not have…

She needed air. Fresh air. She was beginning to imagine things that were not there.

She no more cared if the others heard her. Her feet carried her deftly to the foyer, working the locks until the front door opened and she stepped out into the cool light of morning. Her breathing was heavy, her pulse racing.

It took staring out at the calm, quiet forest, the pond shedding its mist, the incoming blue morning sky, to reassure her that she was okay. It had only been some figment of her overactive imagination. Nothing more than that.

The house and all that went on inside of it was simply overwhelming her, that was all.

It was all so very different from what she knew to be true and real and right.

A cool morning breeze caught at the ends of her hair, brushing it across her chest. Her nipples pressed against the thin material of her nightgown. She mindlessly wrapped the robe tighter about herself. The seasons were shifting though and soon the wind would blow hot again.

She had nearly forgotten that seasons existed, that a whole world went on outside of the Spellman home. She thought then of her small cottage, abandoned as it would be out in the woods. She had heard rumors in the courthouse that someone had vandalized it, thrown rocks through the windows, set fire to it. She wondered if those words were true, if her books would be nothing more than ash.

She saw the cottage as she had left it. The little table before the fireplace, her simple little stove, the small twin bed she had laid alone atop of night and night again. It felt like another life entirely. So sparse, so uneventful. She had no idea what it was she had been missing out on, all the life that had been going on around her and she had lived as if dead.

She very well might have died for this life that she was living now was so far from what her life had been before…

A far away cracking sound reverberated through the peaceful forest. A flock of birds startled and sent a tree swaying as they flew off. Mary’s blood ran cold before she put meaning to the noise.

Someone was chopping wood.

The sound came again. Strong and swift.

Mary moved to the edge of the porch, peering around the side of the house towards where the sound had come from.

Another strike of ax meeting with wood.

Now this was unexpected. For there _she_ was, dressed in trousers, no less! Boots were laced up her legs, red-hair pinned up beneath a hat and had Mary not know the outline of her so well she might have mistaken her for a man. But a man Zelda Spellman certainly was not.

Mary watched, mesmerized, as the elder Spellman lifted the ax high in the air and in one perfect strike brought it down, splitting a block of wood perfectly in two. It was well practiced, precise, this motion. Zelda lifted a split half of wood onto her chopping block and split it in two again. Mary pressed her legs together.

The second half was halved again and then Zelda locked up to wipe sweat from her brow and in the process her eyes connected with Mary’s. She smiled easily, flipped the axe so that the blade of it sunk into the stump.

Mary charted Zelda’s motions, felt her palms grow sweaty as Zelda walked towards her, removing her gloves as she came nearer.

“You’re up early.” Zelda came to stand beneath the porch, looking up delicately at Mary.

Mary nodded, held her robe even tighter about her body. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“I hope my chopping didn’t wake you.”

Mary shook her head. “No.”

“Would you like to take a little stroll with me? The Lenten roses Hilda planted have come up and they’re quite beautiful.”

Mary’s chest constricted, her hands clasped tighter about herself.

Zelda regarded Mary, waiting for a response. Her lip curling into a pleased smile as she slapped her gloves against her palm. Mary followed the motion, felt her knees weaken at the sound of it. “Come. A nice walk will do you good.” Zelda held out her hand, motioning for her to come off the porch.

Mary went, drawn like moth to flame to Zelda, bewitched by her, to want to walk through the grass with her, to be led to a little garden at the back of the home, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be walking with her on a crisp morning such as this.

The flowers were a mix of deep, rich purples, blood reds, pastel pinks, and virginal whites. Zelda bent to finger them, to admire the curve of the petals. “They’re lovely, aren’t they?”

Mary leaned down to trace her finger over a deep purple petal, mesmerized by its rich color. “Very attractive.”

Zelda righted herself and Mary could feel her eyes upon her, watching her attentively.

Mary stood then, too, self-conscious, cheeks flushing. For here she was. Alone with Zelda. Zelda in the light of day, fully clothed and carrying out mundane household chores. And Mary’s body was on edge and yet she was calm in Zelda’s serene presence. The woman was more beautiful in the light of day, pretty and laced up and poised. Mary almost couldn’t fathom that it had been her that she had witnessed doing those _things_ all those nights before.

Had Mary been dreaming all along? Perhaps it had all been some weird and strange nightmare. 

“I hope…well, I hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable. I - we want you to feel comfortable here.” Zelda spoke, cognizant of Mary’s discomfort.

Mary shifted, her eyes unable to meet Zelda’s so that she stared closely at the curve of her ear, the way her red-hair rested against the snow-white skin of her neck, her pale cheek upon which was the smear of something red. Mary’s eyes widened.

Her hand reached out of its own accord and she was touching the curve of Zelda’s face as if it were natural, as if she had done it thousands of times before.

Zelda’s serene face startled. There was an intake of air from between red lips. “What is it?”

Mary’s finger wiped at what appeared to be dried blood, fear pulsing through her veins.

Zelda touched Mary’s hand, brought it away from her cheek, examining it. “Oh.” She smiled. “Rabbit’s blood. I skinned one for Hilda this morning.” She explained breezily, wiped the substance from Mary’s hand. The feel of Zelda’s fingers against her own brought every nerve in Mary’s body to life.

Mary inhaled sharply.

Zelda did not release her hand when the blood had disappeared. “I didn’t…I hope I didn’t scare you.”

Mary’s skin lit on fire. A surge of energy raced through her body. Zelda was looking into her eyes, searching, attempting to assuage her. But it only sent her heart racing, pounding in her chest. She willed herself to inhale, to calm herself for certainly Zelda would not see her as an object of desire. Zelda was only wishing to be hospitable, had shown Mary these beautiful flowers in order to make her feel at home. They were close and yet it could mean nothing more to Zelda.

Mary found her voice, “n-no. No, you didn’t.” She let Zelda’s hand go. She had held on too long.

Zelda nodded but did not step away from Mary.

Mary stared at the grass beneath her feet. The ground was soft and buoyant. She felt Zelda watching her but could not look at her. “Thank you…thank you for showing me the flowers. They’re very beautiful.”

“Very beautiful, indeed. They’ll be even more beautiful when they fully bloom.” Zelda’s voice held a hint of amusement, of teasing in it which Mary could not understand. Her cheeks colored in embarrassment and confusion. But the elder woman gave her some mercy, for she shifted. “I should get back to chopping. Wouldn’t want Hilda to be without kindling for breakfast.”

Mary nodded, body astutely aware of Zelda grazing past her to return to her morning task.

Mary stood still, staring at the Lenten roses.

Sensation did not return to her body until she heard the next stroke of the axe cracking against wood.

* * *

Her eyes flashed open.

Darkness.

Predictable.

She had been dreaming of flowers and pale skin and long red-hair.

It was unbearable. This living here, so close and yet so far from something she both wanted and feared. The feel of Zelda’s cheek was remembered in her fingers. The softness of her skin, the warmth it had emitted. Her body hummed with some new energy, as if Zelda’s fingers against her own had infused her with some new level of knowledge. Something ancient and instinctual.

Yet what would Zelda even want from her? She did not have the things which she had watched Zelda take from others. She did not feel capable of _those things_. Nor worthy of them.

Her body had only just been discovered. The curves and crevices, the silk, the heat, the peaks, the softness – all realized beneath her own fingers and it felt dangerous, frightening.

And yet the feel of another’s flesh against her own came to her night after night. Again and again and her own hand was no longer enough.

She was on her feet, pacing the width of the room. Tormented, for if she were to give in to her desires and sneak down the stairs she would be indulging in these sins and yet no closer to them. To watch Zelda being touched and toyed with was becoming excruciating.

Her hands balled into fists. She restlessly sat in the chair by the window, plucked carelessly at the petals of an iris. Restless.

She stood and walked to the windows that peered to the side of the house. A pile of freshly chopped wood was stacked beside a shed. _Her_ handiwork. Her strong hands had produced that. She was everywhere and yet she was not.

Omnipresent.

Blasphemy.

Mary burned, no longer knowing what it was she could and could not believe. And she wanted.

It was instinctual, this descent into bedlam. Her feet carried her of their own accord. She went, she wanted but this night, for the first time, there was no light.

The room below was cast in blackness, deserted, nothingness.

Mary’s exhalation came out shallow and shaky, disappoint surged through her.

She stood on unstable legs, moved through the dimness of the kitchen, reluctantly sulking to the coldness of her bedroom. But she found herself stalled at the foot of the stairs.

Her eyes caught on the outline of a passageway she had never seen before. Her hand traced the outline of it, searching for some way to pull it open. Her fingers caught on a hidden ridge and as if like magic it opened for her. As if the doorway was waiting for her to discover it.

It swung open and she peered around, wondering if this was some trick, some test. But the house lay dormant, quiet in the too quiet night.

She stepped into the passageway, something from within guiding her forward. Her feet met with stairs and she descended further into the house, further and deeper than she had been before. And it smelled of Zelda. Her musky, floral scent permeated every last inch of the passage.

She was unsurprised when she came to the room, eerily illuminated by moonlight seeping through the floorboards above.

It sat before her. The bed upon which Zelda received her pleasures.

It felt more imposing so near to it. Yet, so strangely inviting.

Her fingers swept over the smooth satin.

The images washed over her. Images of things that could not possibly have happened because she saw herself upon the bed, saw herself taking, touching Zelda, doing inexplicable things to her porcelain body.

She pulled her hand away.

Mary should not be shocked by these images after her weeks of dreams and watching. She should not be so frightened or aroused by them, but this had been somehow different, had appeared all so very vivid, real.

She wanted and she wanted and her body ached.

This was the closest she had been to Zelda’s nakedness. This bed upon which Zelda wreathed and took and was touched.

The sheets were cool, the bed welcoming when Mary laid upon it. She stared at the underside of the floorboards above her. She peered at the cracks in the floor, worked her eyes over them. It was not hard to locate. The notch between two boards. Visible in the darkness of the night.

Her blood ran cold.

But _she_ had never looked, had never acknowledged…certainly she had not…

No.

Mary’s body was alive atop the bed.

She stared at the notch in the wood, focused on it as her hand grazed across her breast. A hardened nipple greeted her. Lust overcame her, forced her hand between her legs.

Eyes watched.

Fear pulsed through her that at any moment one of the Spellmans would discover her, find her out. But she touched herself over her edge, curled up, exhausted on her side, her nose burying into a pillow that held the earthy scent that was inherently Zelda Spellman. She inhaled, hugged the pillow against her face, burying herself in its intoxication.

Close and yet never close enough.

Her heart pounded, body recovering, fear vibrating deep in her being as it did. She no longer felt welcome, felt she were intruding in this space. She sprang up, tidied the bed, returned back through the passage, closed off the secret doorway and deftly returned to her bedroom.

She smelled Zelda about her the rest of the night.


	7. Chapter 7

Part 7

Nothing felt as it had only weeks ago. These women had brought her into their home, welcomed her with open arms; whereas, an angry mob of town’s people, who had once loved her, now vilified, villainized her.

But these women were not what they appeared.

She watched as Hilda busied herself at the stove, humming silly, nonsensical things to herself. Docile, quiet, meager at best. She did not appear to have the ability to torment her sister, to humiliate her, shove her head down, did not seem to have it in her at all. 

And yet Mary had witnessed it. She had watched it all unfold before her eyes.

They were sisters and yet they carried on like this. Hidden away in the basement room in which Mary had sought her own pleasures only nights before. As if wanting to be a part of this twisted arrangement.

Though she could not even bring herself to look at Zelda, who was thankfully hidden behind some paper with foreign print Mary could not decipher littering its pages. Zelda, who was clearly more than _bilingual_. Zelda who folded the corners of her newspaper together as she turned the page. And upon carefully observing the action, Mary flushed furiously at the realization that Zelda was looking right at her.

Zelda offered her a brief smile, turned the page, face hidden once again.

Mary tried to control her beating heart. She reached for her tea cup with shaky hand and realized it was empty.

“Here you go, love.” Hilda was then at her side, helping her lower the cup to the table, hand covering Mary’s warmly. Their skin rested against the other’s for just a moment too long. Hilda’s hand was so warm, so inviting where it rested against her own. Mary could feel Hilda looking at her, felt almost as if she might be able to read her mind, to see what perverse thoughts were running through her head – for what else did the sisters get up to in their shared bedroom at the end of the hall? The curiosity plagued Mary now.

Mary pulled her hand away, self-conscious, too aware of Hilda’s touch. For that hand…that hand had touched…

She watched as Hilda refilled the cup, noticed that Zelda was watching this interaction around the side of her newspaper.

Sabrina, head stuck in a book as she ate her breakfast, was blissfully unaware of the invisible threads weaving their way about the three elder women around her.

The touch had meant nothing and yet it had. The curious gaze was something and yet it was not.

Where did Mary exist in all of this? She was not one of them and yet she was no longer not. She did not exist in this alluringly magical world, yet she also no longer existed outside of it.

The very depths of the house called out to her, made her feel alive as she had not been before. Zelda’s eyes upon her, the brush of Hilda’s hand as she moved back to the stove – it was nothing and yet it was not nothing.

* * *

The sun had set an hour ago.

They read in the sitting room by firelight, the four of them.

Zelda and Hilda in their adjoining straight back chairs. Sabrina curled up near to Mary on the settee across the way.

Sabrina yawned, stretched. Mary watched from the corner of her eye as the young girl looked up from her page to her Aunt who sat mindlessly smoking over some French novel. Though as Mary hazarded a glance up, she realized that said Aunt had not been so focused upon her French prose, but had instead been looking at Mary for their eyes met, briefly.

Zelda turned to meet her niece’s gaze.

“Auntie, will you come read to me?” Sabrina inquired, holding out her book.

“Can’t you read it yourself?” Zelda marked her page.

“I’m having trouble translating Sor Juana Inès de la Cruz. Her poems. It’s the Spanish I’m struggling with.” Sabrina frowned.

Zelda’s eyes sparkled with mirth. Whether it was the mention of the poetry her niece was reading, or the fact that her niece needed her, Mary could not really decipher. 

“Will you come translate one for me?” Sabrina held out the book again.

Zelda inhaled the last of her tobacco and crushed out the remaining paper. Mary watched her rise elegantly from her seat. She came nearer to Mary, nudged Sabrina up so that she could sit. Near enough that Mary could smell her musk, the hint of roses, mixed with tobacco. Zelda’s body settled near to Mary’s and Sabrina rested herself easily atop her aunt – and Mary was quite surprised that Zelda would allow her such childish liberties and yet Zelda cradled her as if she were an infant -, Sabrina half-splaying herself on Mary so that they were all trapped together.

Mary felt Hilda watching carefully from over some English play she’d been perusing.

“Which one?” Zelda held the book in her hands and Sabrina shifted the pages to find the one she had been intrigued by.

“This one.”

Mary had long ago abandoned _Paradise Lost_ , so that she earmarked her page and allowed herself to be taken in by this poet whom she had never heard of, but whom Zelda seemed to regard so very highly.

“A female poet?” Mary asked.

“Yes, a nun who lived in Mexico. Though I do believe she was a nun rather against her own will, from what I’ve gathered.” Zelda explained.

“What does this mean, Auntie Zee? _Mortal herida_?” Sabrina pointed to the page.

“A mortal wound, a deadly wound.”

“With the pain of a mortal wound?” Sabrina sounded out the title.

“Your languages are getting stronger.” Zelda praised the girl. “Let’s see if I can make some sense out of this.” She settled further into the couch and began to read.

_“Con el dolor de la mortal herida,_

_de un agravio de amor me lamentaba;_

_y por ver si la muerte se llegaba,_

_procuraba que fuese más crecida.”_

The inflection of Zelda’s voice uttering the foreign words which sounded like the Latin of the Catholic church, made Mary’s chest curl pleasantly. For if Zelda had been the Priest – no, the Priestess - at Mass every morning perhaps Mary might have sat up and paid more attention. She had an easy flow to her voice, a perfect rhapsodic way of finessing each word.

“She’s talking of love here. See, you might say it in English this way:

Love opened a mortal wound.

In agony, I worked the blade

to make it deeper. Please,

I begged, let death come quickly.”

It sounded even more poetic in the English. Mary felt her legs press together, the words sorting and re-sorting themselves about in her brain. To love so deeply that it could feel as if someone had stabbed her.

She thought then of having looked out the window a few mornings before to see Zelda driving a knife into the hide of a rabbit. The blood that had come, ending the rabbit’s life at Zelda’s expert hand.

“Why would love hurt so much?” Sabrina yawned again.

Such a simple question from someone so young. How many times Mary had thought of death in the last few days. Of the simplicity of it. For death would make her internal conflict, her cravings vanish. Death was an escape.

“And why would they use the word mortal to mean deadly?” Sabrina asked before anyone could respond to her. “Are mortals so weak that love hurts them and they want to die?”

Zelda chuckled low. “Mortal means it can be extinguished. The type of love, I believe, she is referring to here is eternal, immortal. This wound is only the surface of it, she cannot rid herself of the feelings in her soul.”

“Then if the love goes so deeply that she feels it in her soul, why must she die?” Sabrina looked up at her aunt.

Mary felt the shifting of Sabrina’s legs, watched as Zelda’s hand thoughtlessly began to tickle down Sabrina’s arm as she gathered her words. For explaining the complexities of love to an adolescent was a monumental task. To explain the heartaches, to explain the little deaths that one experienced…well, Sabrina could only experience it in time.

Zelda regarded the page again. “Love can be like a kind of death. Sometimes love can be so painful that we wish to die instead of to feel it. Sometimes love can be so intense that it hurts, especially if it cannot be fully expressed.”

Sabrina wrinkled up her nose at this. “That’s silly. Love shouldn’t be so complicated.”

Oh! What she did not yet know.

Mary felt her body tense when she felt the heat of Zelda’s thigh so near to her own. Zelda’s hand continued to run down Sabrina’s arm. Up and down. The girl’s eyes grew heavier.

“Read the rest.” Sabrina demanded around another yawn. And Zelda read and Mary watched, mesmerized, as her hand glided along Sabrina’s arm, watched as the girl’s eyes slid closed to the soothing voice of her aunt.

“Wild, distracted, sick,

I counted, counted

all the ways love hurt me.

One life, I thought--a thousand deaths.

Blow after blow, my heart

couldn't survive this beating.

Then--how can I explain it?

I came to my senses. I said,

Why do I suffer? What lover

ever had so much pleasure?”

The room was silent when Zelda closed the book of poems.

Sabrina was asleep atop them. Trapping them.

Zelda was so very near to her. Smelling of that scent that was so distinctly her, that made Mary’s head spin.

_Que sobrarban mil muertes a una vida._

Yes, a thousand little deaths. A thousand daily. Mary had felt them acutely. Felt another now as she watched Zelda’s hand move steadily, soothingly over Sabrina’s arm. She observed the delicate lines in her hands, how strong they seemed to be, how finely shaped they were.

Hilda was looking at Zelda from across the room. Zelda was looking at Hilda.

“I’m going to put on another pot of tea.” Hilda rose, as if driven by some cue. She did not need to make more tea. They had drunk enough that evening and no one had asked. But Hilda stood dutifully and moved to the kitchen despite these small facts. 

It could have been a mistake. The slight brush of Zelda’s hand against her own. For Mary had rested her hands atop Sabrina’s legs to keep her supported. That was all. The fact that her hand had come near to Zelda’s was nothing more than a miscalculation of space on Zelda’s part.

But Zelda’s pinky finger edging closer to her’s, lightly trapping her smallest digit against Sabrina’s leg…it did not feel like a mistake. It felt deliberate.

Mary’s heart hammered in her chest, her eyes moving to where their hands now rested side-by-side. What was Zelda doing?

Zelda’s ring finger lifted, moved over the back of Mary’s hand, lightly playing over every vein. And this could not be explained away. It was purposeful, an intentional touch.

It was safer if she kept all her focus on their hands. For it could not have been of her own volition that her hand shifted, fingers coming to play against Zelda’s. They combined, entwined, pads of fingers exploring the palm of hands, the length of long, finely weathered fingers, the touch light, playful and yet Mary’s body was fully awake. The sensation deeply remembered.

Even more awake when Zelda’s other hand came to rest gently at Mary’s lowered cheek. Zelda’s hand was warm. It sent a visceral sensation ricocheting through her.

Mary wanted and yet she was afraid. She wanted and yet refused to acknowledge the gentle pull of Zelda’s fingers against her cheek, the fact that their hands were now resting entwined on top of Sabrina, that Zelda was willing her eyes upwards. If Mary looked then it would be real.

And she wanted to look and yet she could not look.

Until she could not look away.

“It’s alright to take what you want.” Zelda whispered, her breath warm and smoky against Mary’s cheek. And her lips sunk into the flesh of Mary’s too warm cheek.

And Mary wanted. Breath shallowed, body rigid, fearful that this was all a dream. But when Zelda leaned in and pressed their lips squarely together she knew that it was not, that it was real.

Something broke inside of Mary. It felt like a slingshot that had been held taut had now come lose and she felt her body release into the curve of Zelda’s mouth. A mouth that she knew and yet did not. The feel of Zelda against her, the taste of her, the sensation was a homecoming. She had been detached from this and now it was all coming back to her. Somewhere deep inside of her she recollected Zelda. It had happened before and yet it had not happened before.

Her hand was on Zelda’s cheek, holding her closer, never wanting it to end once it had begun. This kiss. This kiss that she had dreamed of a thousand times before, a thousand times a night.

Sabrina shifted beneath them and Mary jumped away, fear and panic setting her rigid. The knife twisted deeper.

Zelda looked to Sabrina’s sleeping visage and sighed.

Hilda returned then with tea and somehow Zelda held a steady conversation with her sister which Mary could not follow nor understand.

Instead, she sat in a drunk stupor with the undrunk tea cup cradled in her hands.

She had kissed Zelda. Zelda had kissed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used the English translation from this website - though it's not the most accurate. More poetic, really. Do forgive me. :)
> 
> https://poets.org/poem/love-opened-mortal-wound-con-el-dolor-de-la-mortal-herida


	8. Chapter 8

Part 8

Zelda had clasped her hand in parting that evening. Briefly. It might not have even happened at all. Mary could scarcely be certain of what truly went on in this home, after all.

She laid in bed.

The moonlight shown through the window, cast a brilliant, clear bright white light across the floor.

She had washed up except for her hand. Her hand which still recalled the weight of Zelda’s, the sensation of her skin pressed and folded and wrapped about her own.

Her hand tingled, lips smarting.

She touched a finger to her lips, traced the outline. Lips. What strange, fascinating things they were. How soft and delicate, how gentle they felt to be touched, to touch someone else’s against one’s own. For what was kissing? An exchange of energy between two people? An intimate, split-second connection?

It had felt like everything and nothing.

Her hand came away from her lips. She held it in the moonlight, examining the lines, the veins, the way it could bend, fold in on itself and then open up again. She thought of the way two hands could play together, could grasp, could hold, could touch.

It had been so long since she had touched another. She remembered the clasp of Adam’s hand, clumsy, detached and always a bit clammy against her own. As if he were nervous to be touching her, as if she were fragile and might have broken.

Zelda’s hand had been firm, certain. As if by twining their fingers together she had somehow enchanted Mary, bestowed a flood of energy that still lingered, coiled tightly in her chest. She could feel bits and pieces of Zelda flowing through her blood. Pulsing stronger and with more urgency with each passing second.

Her feet hit the floor before she realized what it was she was doing.

Her body wanted.

And yet she feared it, for it all felt too much, too large, too outside the realms of possibility, probability. How could she have lived so dead for so long and only just now be awakening to these sensations? At the hands of a witch no less, a female enchantress.

Was this all some horrible way of tormenting her?

She did not wish to be made in to more of a joke than she already was. This could be the Spellman’s own form of punishment and she had readily, willingly fallen into this trap. The thought crossed her addled brain, but seemed to vanish at the thought of Hilda’s reassuring hand, the way Zelda had grasped her that evening – certainly it was not born out of spite?

She wanted to go, to see, to look. To behold what it was Zelda would do on an evening after having kissed her so provocatively. With Sabrina right there before them – Sabrina who might have awoken at any moment – with Hilda so nearby – for she could have returned with the tea mid-kiss. It had been daring. And the way Zelda had regarded her as they’d parted that evening had told Mary that some sort of agreeable decision had been made about her and her presence in the Spellman home.

Hair was tossed over the collar of her robe hastily as Mary moved to make her nightly descent into the depths of the house.

Questions raced through her mind, questions that had not been there before. With each step forward the tingling that had warmed her hand began to stretch throughout her being, raced up her forearm, her elbow, her shoulder, melding with the spreading sensation that flowed from her lips, down her other arm, curving down her sternum, between her legs, down her thighs, over knees, shins, to the tips of her toes.

Her body was realized. Had come to life. With each new step forward, she felt a new part of herself born.

She saw herself as she was, alive and existing in the world around her. Alive and visible. An equal player in whatever game it was that was playing out in this home.

The image appeared on the stairs: herself doubled. It came and faded in a matter of seconds. As if it had passed inside of her, become one with her.

However, it was the sight that greeted her in the sitting room that brought her becoming walk to a halt.

The tobacco was thick, the robe did little to hide a slip of lace and then bare white skin that curved over the swell of her chest, hair unrolled and loose from the day.

Zelda Spellman undone.

Looking right at Mary. As if she had been waiting for her.

Smoke curled from her lips. Zelda did not move, did not rearrange herself, retained her slouched, undone position, but watched Mary. Intently. Her eyes were focused solely upon her, Mary could feel them piercing her in the soft candlelight of the room.

The fire cracked and sputtered where it still glowed in the hearth.

Zelda sighed. “You needn’t be afraid of me.”

Mary felt as if she should be.

“Come here.”

Mary came. Slowly, unsteadily, for she knew she was walking into something that very well may undo her. This was new, this was an acknowledgement, a recognition. There was no more hiding behind the bedroom door, no more clumsy pawing at herself, longing, yearning…

“What…what is happening in this house?” Mary meagerly squeaked out, hand coming to rest on the back of the chair before Zelda. Glad to have the object between them.

Zelda picked ash from her tongue, eyes still holding Mary, as if those two darkened orbs were supporting Mary, keeping her standing. An easy smile tugged at Zelda’s lips. “I am acutely aware of the goings on around here. You must know I’ve been wise to your midnight sleuthing.”

At this Mary’s cheeks colored. Though in a normal world outside of this home it should be Zelda who was embarrassed. But it had become abundantly clear that this was no ordinary world in which they were living.

“It was only a matter of time before we might find ourselves here, hmm?” Zelda tapped her ashes into a dish and brought the cigarette to her lips again. Mary followed the action attentively. Zelda sat forward. “You seem particularly intrigued by what it is I do.”

Mary’s mouth opened and closed.

Zelda was smiling again. “It must be rather shocking, I suppose.” She yawned, sat back in her chair, motioned for Mary to take the seat she was clasping onto instead of using it as a shield. Mary complied obediently, slunk into the chair across from Zelda. Now there was nothing between them and Zelda’s gaze was very penetrating, attentive. “You see, you come from a world that holds on to rigid morals. It lives off the repression of desires. It denies the body its pleasures, the mind its freedom. Particularly if one is born a woman.” Here Zelda stubbed out her tobacco irritably.

“It’s the only world I knew…” Mary stuttered. “I never thought to question it.”

“But you have been.” Zelda crossed her legs. Mary followed the motion, the way Zelda’s robe slid away, revealing skin. Skin she had seen before, but never bared for her.

“Y-yes.” Mary watched as Zelda’s fingers moved to rub mindlessly against her own neck. Her eyes were drawn instantly to the spans of flesh there. She thought of the countless number of lips that had caressed at that exact point. She realized then that her own hand was drawn to her own neck without thought. She tugged her hands down into her lap, clasping them together. “I don’t see what it is you’re attempting to achieve here.” She found herself saying steadily for it was easier with her head bowed, eyes not upon the face of the exquisite creature before her. “I can’t do…I’m not…I’m not like you.”

There was a silence before she sensed Zelda leaning, lifting the lid of a wooden box near to her chair. She lifted another roll of tobacco and struck a match, lighting it. The smell permeated the room again, enveloped Mary with its familiarity. “You may not be like me and that wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Then why did you…” Mary had the audacity to look up, to stare through the blue smoke to find Zelda’s unreadable gaze yet again.

“You didn’t want it?”

“I…” Of course, she had wanted it. Though wanting something had never led to having something. She had wanted a mother and a father, to grow up as normal children did, to belong somewhere, to be loved. She had wanted and wanted and to this point in her life she had never been given that which she desired.

Zelda was unfurling herself from the chair. She stood at first by the fireplace, reaching for a shiny poker which she shoved violently at the embers to stir them up, to create chaos so that the fire would reignite. She lifted the rolled tobacco to her lips and inhaled, watching the fire as it sprang back to life. She stood, almost as if she did not care to hear Mary’s answer to her posed question, for it seemed they both knew the answer.

“You have lived a very unhappy life for a very long time.” Zelda knew. “I didn’t want to see it ended, not like this.”

“But you…” Mary thought of that night that Judge Blackwood had come to the Spellman home.

Zelda turned to her, smiled. “There are things you don’t yet know about this world. Things that may be hard to understand.” She was moving closer to Mary. “You see, I am highly revered and respected amongst my kind. I operate of my own free will. I could not allow for the unholy powers to take your life for giving to my niece that which she desired.”

Zelda was behind Mary now. Mary felt her heartbeat speeding up, wondering just what it was Zelda would do next, wondering just what it was she meant by having such reverence from the witches and warlocks about her. Mary had scarcely ever seen a woman in power, a woman who held such confidences in herself and it was intoxicating.

She felt the hand before it came to rest on her shoulder. “You desire.” Zelda’s voice was near to her ear, a whisper.

Mary squeezed her hands tightly together, eyes sliding closed. “I may desire, but I…I never…”

“Shh.” Zelda whispered, pressing her lips against Mary’s cheek. “You can have whatever it is you wish.”

“I can’t have a family, nor a home, nor lo – “ Mary felt a tear slide down her cheek. Her wants expressed out loud made her feel small.

“Why can’t you?” Zelda’s voice was warm against the shell of her ear, teeth lightly catching at her earlobe, the brushing away of her hair so that warm lips could press against the skin of her neck. “It’s up to you, of course.” Zelda’s lips caught the edge of Mary’s jaw.

It felt heavenly, divine, more powerful than anything had ever felt. Just the simple touch of Zelda’s lips against her. She felt the blood rush to her face, aware of every inch of herself. What was it that Zelda was after? Tormenting her like this.

“I’m nothing to you.” Mary’s voice quivered.

Zelda’s lips ceased their sultry attack. It seemed she hovered there at Mary’s side, baffled for the first time that evening. “Nothing?” She exhaled a cloud of smoke. A finger was placed against Mary’s cheek, wiping at her tears. “Whatever do you mean? Nothing?”

Mary opened her eyes to find Zelda kneeling before her. She was watching her through smoke, concern wrinkling her brow. 

“You’re here in my home, I do believe. You are seated before me now. I distinctly recall the feel of your hand in mine, the way I kissed you. You cannot be nothing if you are so visceral to me.” Zelda spoke.

Mary shifted. “What about…you have…others…”

A smile lifted the corner of Zelda’s lips. “You will come to find that the world of witches do not subscribe to the ideals of the Christian or outside world. I have…certain proclivities, you see. Certain appetites, as you have come to discover, but I…oh, well…” Zelda’s hand came to rest on Mary’s knee as she wrapped her lips about her cigarette.

“I can’t…”

“Can’t? Can’t what?” Zelda sat back on her heels, hand removed from Mary’s person. Mary missed the contact. “You can’t fathom the idea of caring for more than one person? You believe that a person should belong to another, to one person only?” Zelda snorted at this. “I can’t even begin to express how wrong it is, this antiquated idea. Of owning and being owned. You,” here Zelda sat forward and captured Mary’s face in her hand. “You have a mind. A gorgeous head filled with all sorts of thoughts and ideas. You saved yourself from marrying by having an education, by teaching these children all sorts of wonderful, beautiful things.”

Mary felt warm tears rushing down her face as she stared into Zelda’s dark eyes, so near to her. Her face was trapped between Zelda’s hands. “I’ve been so lonely, though…I…They…they crucified me! They nearly put me to death for it!”

Zelda smiled warmly at this. “Yes, and it was because they feared you. They were afraid of how powerful your knowledge truly is. It’s a gift, Mary. A beautiful gift. So why put limits on yourself? I think, if you searched somewhere inside of yourself you would know what it is that you see in this house.”

Mary shook her head, loathe to admit to anything. To acknowledge what it was that Zelda did.

Zelda wiped her thumbs over Mary’s cheeks, her eyes softening as she did so. “Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you.”

_She would_. Mary’s mind incanted over and over. And yet there was the warmth of Zelda’s hand against her cheek, the smell of her tobacco, the closeness of her eyes. Mary turned her face in Zelda’s grasp, lips grazing the palm of her hand. Zelda’s thumb ghosted over Mary’s lips, and Mary found her mouth opening of its own volition.

“Oh.” Zelda sighed, as Mary’s lips closed about her finger.

And the little surprised noise it very nearly broke the spell for Mary sat back, removing herself from Zelda’s grasp. “No.” Mary held up her hands, as if needing protection.

Zelda smoked furiously as she sat back to crush out her nearly ash tobacco. “It’s perfectly alright, this.”

Mary folded into herself. Her cheeks burned with shame and embarrassment. It was all too much, too overwhelming. She had wanted and yet all she could see were the people who had come before her, who had taken Zelda. And she could never be enough, could never please someone like Zelda. It would be humiliating to even think…

Zelda kept her distance, sinking back against the chair she had come from.

Mary rubbed at her face, mortified.

They sat in the stillness of the night, fire slowly crackling to a low blaze again, moon still shinning its brilliant light, Zelda still seated atop the floor looking more beautiful than ever as she lit another roll of tobacco.

Had Mary offended her by pushing her away? Certainly, she would understand, would know that Mary wanted it and yet…. she was equally horrified by it. By the way her body was reacting, by the way Zelda made her feel.

Zelda did not move to leave her, though. Instead she sat with her, smoking in silence, as if waiting for Mary to speak. Mary watched as Zelda dragged smoke into her lungs and then exhaled in careful blueish-white streams. It was enticing, this habit of hers.

Zelda saw her watching and lifted the tobacco towards her.

An invitation.

Mary joined the dance, found herself kneeling on the floor before her own chair, leaning forward to take the object into her hands. Zelda sat up, instructed her on how to take some of the smoke into her lungs. Mary coughed and sputtered until she managed to inhale properly. Her lips covered the same place that Zelda’s had. She liked the way that Zelda watched her, liked when the tobacco was passed back to Zelda and Zelda placed it again between her own lips.

There was a slow, creeping feeling that washed over Mary, an easing of her racing mind, her pounding heart. She curled onto the floor beside Zelda, but did not touch her. Her eyes stayed trained on the bit of white knee that lay exposed to her eyes, the top of a thigh.

Her eyes dared to wonder where her hands dared not.

“I’ve only ever had one other person in my life.” Mary awkwardly found herself attempting to explain. “When I was young…I met him when I first moved to Greendale. He was the town physician.”

“Adam Masters.” Zelda intoned, knowing. Always knowing. She passed the tobacco to Mary.

Mary inhaled, nodded. “Y-yes.” Forgetting that Zelda had inhabited this town as well and would know the people in it. “Adam.” She had not spoken his name for years.

“And I take it your relationship was…”

“Ended. When I refused to give up my teaching position to marry him.” Mary shrugged at this, inhaling the smoke before passing the tobacco back to Zelda. Their fingers met briefly. “I always thought that something was wrong…that I was broken because I couldn’t…and I’d rather he have someone who…could.”

“He never touched you?” Zelda ventured.

Mary shook her head. “Polite kisses, hand holding, but never… I’ve been alone. All these years. By myself. So, you see I don’t think…”

“Then don’t think.” Zelda spoke simply.

Mary’s eyes met with Zelda’s through the haze of their shared smoke. “I wouldn’t know…”

“You’re a fast learner. Besides, we have nothing but time.” Zelda’s eyes glimmered in the dim light. “What you witnessed me doing was only a part of it, Mary. All of that can mean nothing. Sometimes a simple touch from the right person can mean so much more.”

There was a challenge, a reassurance in her words.

Mary watched the steady rise and fall of Zelda’s chest, the way she finished the tobacco and turned carefully to stub it out with the others she’d already smoked that evening. The way her hair slipped over her shoulder, fell into her face when she turned.

And somehow Mary felt herself pulled forward, towards her, lunging, her body so very alive as she reached for Zelda, as they tumbled together, rolled until Zelda was laid out before the fireplace, arms pinned above her head and Mary above her, breathless and bewildered by what had just overcome her. Her legs were draped over Zelda’s thigh, could feel Zelda’s nearly bare leg pressed between her own thinly covered thighs.

And Zelda was smiling beneath her, so very prettily and a bit surprised.

Their chests moved in tandem. Inhaling, exhaling. Their bodies did not move against one another, simply lay taut, stretched out, suspended.

Mary followed the movement of Zelda’s eyes, which traced her own eye movement. They held, suspended in time, until Mary’s eyes dropped to Zelda’s lips which she had kissed only hours before – but had felt like lifetimes, or perhaps seconds ago. Time was an illusion.

Their lips moved closer together, Mary lowered her head, her eyes returning to Zelda’s and neither looked away as smoky breath ghosted over cheeks, lips brushing, eyes still looking, watching. Timid. It was shy, these kisses. Probing, exploratory.

Until Zelda freed her hands and wound her fingers into Mary’s hair, pulling her closer to her, Mary’s body falling atop Zelda’s, their lips combined. Their kisses lingered, elongated. Their bodies shifted but lips did not part, legs did not untangle, but nor was there any other movement then the press of lips against lips.

They kissed until lips dried, arms shook, the floorboards beneath them pressed uncomfortably into their shoulders and arms, until the embers in the fireplace died out.

They stared at one another in the dark, eyes heavy with sleep. Something new had just been borne of this. Mary’s body was taut, like the strings of a violin. She was wound so tightly, clung to Zelda so forcefully, as if afraid it all might shatter.

Zelda brushed a hand through Mary’s hair, curling it behind her ear, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Let’s get you to bed.” She whispered.

Mary’s eyes widened, as if afraid that this may all end.

Zelda sat up and moved to help Mary. “I won’t go anywhere,” she assured her, looping her arm about Mary’s waist as they walked to the stairs.

Mary felt a curious sort of delight when Zelda slid into the bed beside her. Their bodies cradled by the soft mattress. Zelda reached for Mary to pull her against her again. “Sleep now.”

And Mary’s body gave in to the sensation of Zelda’s wrapped about her. Zelda, smelling of Zelda, Mary’s nose buried in the curve of her neck so that it washed over her. Their legs entwined. And how intimate it was to be holding her like this, how right it seemed.

Mary’s lips found the soft skin of Zelda’s neck and pressed a lazy kiss to the flesh before she drifted off into a dreamless sleep in the protection of Zelda’s arms.


	9. Chapter 9

Part 9

There was the light patter of rain against the window pane.

Spring was approaching. She could smell the damp earth brought on the wind that seeped through the cracks in the window frame. It was nature, and it was earth, and the promise of new life and something else.

Warmth. The feel of another’s body pressed against her own.

She was not alone in this bed.

Her eyes flashed open. They came to rest upon the familiar, the mundane image she had grown accustomed to waking to every morning. The freshly arranged flowers on the table beside the chair before the window. Just as it always was. And yet there was warmth permeating around her and the familiar musk of crushed roses and tobacco.

Mary’s eyes widened as the body shifted in the bed, foot touching her leg.

Zelda.

Zelda had stayed with her through the night. Their bodies had drawn apart in sleep and yet they were still near to one another. She could hear the even breathing of the other woman. She was still asleep.

Mary’s heart raced, afraid to acknowledge their close proximity, that she had shared a bed with this woman. And the previous night flashed before her mind. How delicious Zelda’s lips had been against her own, how sumptuous their bodies felt pressed together.

But that had been the night, by the light of the moon. This…this was the morning. Through the rain the daylight illuminated the room. It changed things, didn’t it?

And yet Zelda had stayed.

Mary wanted.

Zelda was still asleep, yet if Mary turned just slightly, just smoothly enough, she might just catch a glimpse… Her body worked its way slowly from her right side to her left, conscious of every shift, every noise. And she was rewarded with a curl of golden hair that smelled of the lye soap that Hilda had crafted of lavender and bergamot.

Mary studied the strands in the cloudy lighting of the rainy morning, intrigued by their golden red hue, the way they curled just so at the ends where Zelda kept them pinned up during the day.

It was then the slightly parted lips that drew Mary’s attention away from Zelda’s hair. The light intake of breath that caused Zelda’s chest to rise and then fall. The wrinkles about her lips that could only be seen this close to her. Her cheekbones were round, her nose came to an adorable little point at the end.

She looked so serene in sleep, so very peaceful.

Thunder rolled somewhere off in the distance.

Zelda stirred, shifted a bit. Her eyes came open, deep blue with hints of emerald. They did not at first focus upon Mary, but after blinking several times her head turned and she met Mary’s curious gaze.

Mary’s heart sped up at the realization that she had been rudely staring. It was an invasion, to be looking at Zelda like this when she was not aware. Mary wanted to turn, to look away but Zelda’s hand reached for her beneath the blanket, grasped onto her arm, gave her a sleepy, reassuring squeeze.

She turned to face Mary more fully, eyes still warming to the day. She cupped a hand to Mary’s face, traced her thumb over the curve of Mary’s cheek, swallowed. “Good morning.”

Mary’s eyes traced from Zelda’s soft gaze to the curve of her lips. “Morning.” Mary’s voice was hoarse.

They laid parallel. Not touching more than Zelda’s hand to Mary’s cheek.

Watching, looking.

Until Zelda’s lips curled into a smile and she removed her hand, reaching for Mary’s beneath the sheets. Mary felt their fingers meet, Zelda momentarily, accidentally brushing against her hip and the sensation was felt throughout her entire being. Zelda gently lifted Mary’s hand, pulling it close to her lips so that she could kiss it, kiss each of her knuckles, she opened their hands and pressed her lips to Mary’s palm. “It’s alright.” She whispered, pressing Mary’s hand to her cheek.

Permission.

Her cheek was warm beneath the pad of Mary’s hand. Zelda’s hand fell away, eyes studying Mary as Mary allowed the sensation of Zelda’s cheek to flow through her. She held her hand against Zelda’s skin until she felt her thumb moving, slowly at first, caressing the smooth skin beneath her finger, moving over the wrinkle beneath Zelda’s cheekbone.

Mary watched her hand, ignoring the heat of Zelda’s patient gaze upon her. Her fingers came to life, stroked at her cheek, traced down the line of her jaw and there were those pink lips. So soft and pliant. Her fingers moved over the supple flesh, tracing the outline of them, the glimpse of perfectly straight teeth that were revealed and then Zelda’s mouth opened to her. The pad of her finger traced over the tops of teeth, catching on a sharp eyetooth, pressing it into her skin.

Zelda’s tongue darted forward, tracing the line of Mary’s finger. Mary’s breath caught in her throat at the sensation. Zelda stopped what it was she was doing. But Mary did not pull away. Instead she allowed her finger to slide forward, to meet with tongue, so that Zelda wrapped her lips about Mary’s finger, drawing it deeper into her mouth. And then there was a tight lock about Mary’s digit, her eyes grew wide at the pressure, at the pull and its intensity.

The finger emerged with a pop.

Mary felt her chest rising and falling. Her hand cupped at Zelda’s jaw and she leaned down, capturing Zelda’s lips in her own, pressing against them as she had the night before and Zelda responded to the kisses, leaned into Mary, meeting her kiss for kiss.

And in the rocking of bodies against one another, Mary felt the swell of Zelda’s breasts against her own. Those pink nipples that she had seen on display were now beneath her and Zelda…Zelda was giving her permission.

Mary’s lips came away from Zelda’s and she bowed her head, raising up on her arms as she did so. Her gaze shifted, looked down between them, found the outline of Zelda’s nipples through her silky nightdress. She sighed at the sight of them, felt the warm wetness between her tightly pressed together legs. Her hips moved towards Zelda of their own volition.

“Here.” Zelda whispered, shifted ever so slightly, carefully holding on to Mary as she pulled at her gown, pulled until it lifted to reveal the spans of milky-white skin and those taut pink nipples. Mary’s eyes fixated on them as Zelda lifted her head to remove the gown entirely, to let it fall over the edge of the bed onto the floor carelessly.

But that would mean that…Mary’s eyes shifted towards where the skin ended and the sheets began. Her heart raced, her center throbbed.

Zelda leaned up, pressed a reassuring kiss against where she could reach, right at Mary’s jawline. “Please.” Zelda whispered, her voice different somehow. Unlike anything Mary had heard her speak before.

Mary’s hand shook as she reached across her, as she let her fingers come to meet with the left nipple. A sigh was emitted forth from Zelda’s lips when Mary’s fingers pulled at the pink peak, lifting the skin about it and then she covered the whole breast with her hand, feeling the weight of it in her palm. Her hand moved, rolled the flesh in her hand and Zelda shifted slightly beneath her.

Then there was the other nipple that was near to Mary’s lips. If she leaned down…she wrapped her lips about it as if in a kiss. Zelda shifted again, snaked her fingers into Mary’s hair, scratching at her scalp.

Mary found the nub with her tongue, circled it decadently, lazily. Zelda whimpered above her. She covered her teeth with her lips and pulled at the nipple, just enough and Zelda’s chest moved upwards with her.

“Oh.” Zelda gasped when Mary’s lips popped away from her breast.

Mary looked to her face, saw the flush of her cheeks, the blurriness of her eyes. She had not known that she could elicit such a response from someone of Zelda’s expertise. It emboldened her for a brief moment, the way that Zelda was looking at her. The way that Zelda reached for her, pulling her closer so that she could kiss her and Mary felt their bodies shift fully together so that her thigh slid against wetness and a thigh slid into her own.

She gasped at the contact, pulling away to look down at Zelda.

There must have been fear in her eyes for Zelda’s hands came up to brace her face, to brush away her hair, to force their eyes together.

There was a flash of lightening. Thunder sounded. The storm was approaching. It would be upon in them in a matter of minutes.

The thought, the look in Zelda’s eyes, calmed Mary. There was an assurance in the hooded way that Zelda was looking at her, the way that they were unconsciously rocking together.

Mary bowed her head, burying her face in Zelda’s neck, inhaling her skin, reassured by her presence, by her being. Her lips came to rest against the skin there. One kiss turned to another, to another and Zelda’s body encouraged her, came to life beneath her kisses.

She pressed her lips to one breast and then the other. The sheet was sliding away as she moved.

There was the skin of Zelda’s soft stomach that was revealed to her. Mary’s lips sank against the flesh, her head bowing, coming to rest against her breast, in awe of the sight laid out before her. For there was Zelda, all laid out and bare.

Zelda’s hand came up, stroked at Mary’s hair again, as if waiting.

Mary stared at the lower body, aware that she was pressing against Zelda’s thigh as she looked, aware that Zelda was breathing heavily and yet was being patient with her.

Mary’s hand came to rest against the soft flesh. Her fingers trailed lazy patterns over it, slowly, carefully, daring to move downwards. Circling about Zelda’s navel, curiously ducking a finger inside, before daring to venture just a bit further, to ghost over a hipbone, causing Zelda to jerk, her fingers stilled in Mary’s hair as she did so.

Zelda’s knee shifted up, her other leg firmly pressed into Mary. She was open to her.

Mary shifted up onto her forearm, let her eyes first venture to the space between Zelda’s legs. A roll of thunder crashed down closer to them, a flash of lightening shown through the window. It shown there before her, Zelda’s leg shifting to allow more.

Mary’s hand reached for the safety of Zelda’s bent thigh, letting her fingers trail over the skin there and as she got closer she felt the heat radiating towards her fingers. Zelda’s pelvis tilted just so.

Mary could feel herself ridiculously soaked, knew that Zelda could feel it against her thigh.

But it seemed so inconsequential to the way that Zelda was opening for her, leading her closer so that her fingers finally met with equal wetness. “Oh.” Mary and Zelda sighed in tandem.

“I don’t…” Mary froze against Zelda, frozen in the silky wetness.

“Shh.” Zelda hushed her, placed her hand over Mary’s, guiding her fingers through the moisture to rub and caress. Mary enjoyed the sensation of it, the way that Zelda held her, showed her. First gentle, slow circles and then more until they were concentrated in one place and Zelda was shifting with the motions, moving her hips up and down and Mary watched, enthralled by it all.

Zelda’s breathing above her shortened, she was gasping, moans that Mary had not heard her make those previous nights in bed with the others. And then she felt something shift, Zelda stilling against her hand, pressing their palms tightly against herself as she went silent and motionless.

Mary was breathless, watching it as she was. Zelda’s body went rigid, lifted and then she fell against the bed, removing her hand from Mary’s. “Oh, Satan.” Zelda cursed.

Mary was transfixed by the way Zelda felt beneath her, found that her own body was alive and wanting and she was still attached to Zelda’s leg. Her body was writhing, shaking.

Zelda shifted just so, capturing Mary’s hand between her legs. “Darling,” she whispered, sitting up. “Can I…let me take care of you.”

And Mary’s hand slid from Zelda as she fell back against the bed, welcoming the feel of Zelda as she crawled atop her. Zelda pulled at Mary’s nightgown and Mary drowsily responded, moving quickly to rid herself of the unnecessary barrier. Her skin burned. Zelda bowed her head, hair falling about Mary’s face, to capture Mary’s neck against her lips, to nip lightly at the skin as she arranged herself just so. And then she was mirroring what had been done to her. Mary’s breasts were touched, praised as Zelda pressed her thigh against Mary’s agonizingly sensitive center. And then a hand was between Mary’s thighs and at the first touch Mary felt she might be gone. It was sensory overload. Having Zelda so expertly working her body like this.

She felt a tear work its way down her cheek and she reached for Zelda, wanting, needing to be near to her as her body opened itself to the overwhelming sensations. Her mind went blank, blood rushing to the middle of her body until she could take it no more and she was falling, staggering for breath, calling out against Zelda’s lips which muffled her cries in the early morning.

Zelda rolled to Mary’s side, leg still draped possessively over her, as she caressed Mary’s cheek, stayed with her until the world made sense again.

Thunder shook the entire house, grounding Mary back down to the world. But it was no longer the world she had known a day before.

Everything seemed so much clearer, brighter.

Zelda’s gaze was upon her. Tender, kind. She wiped at Mary’s cheeks, pressed kisses to her neck, her chest.

Their naked bodies were twined together, blissfully. Skin to skin warm, inviting.

Mary turned to look at Zelda. A flash of lightening shone brightly, illuminating her eyes.

A flash. A remembrance.

Gone in an instant.

Zelda frowned. “What is it?”

But Mary didn’t know.

Zelda held her closer. “You’re alright?”

Mary considered this. Her body felt lighter. The tension that had been keeping her on edge for the past few weeks had been uncoiled. She was finally relaxed against Zelda’s naked form.

Whatever she had just seen was only the house playing tricks on her.

She turned into Zelda’s embrace, buried her face in the crook of her neck. “I’ve never been better.” She whispered, falling into a hazy, dreamy, rainy sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Part 10

She awoke to the sounds of birds chirping.

The storm had passed. There was the hint of sunlight against her closed eyelids.

The storm had passed but had somehow taken Zelda with it.

Mary remembered the curve of the other woman’s body, the sensation of skin against skin, the way they had fit together.

Now it was only her face pressed against a pillow that smelled of Zelda, her body sunken into the empty mattress, sheets carefully covering her still naked body. Her eyes came open, nearly hoping that Zelda had only just shifted away from her. But as her vision sharpened into focus she found the bed beside her empty.

An unfamiliar wine escaped from deep within, a feeling of unsubstantiated loss flooded her entire being. She grasped at the sheets. Zelda had been there only moments before. Why had she left?

There was sound coming from the chair in the corner, the slight rustle of skirts. Someone was in the room with her. Perhaps Zelda…

Mary twisted, turned in the bed, body eager, longing. She sat up and the sheets fell away from her chest, revealing her nipples to the chilly morning air.

But it was not Zelda sitting in the chair near the window.

It was Hilda with a tray of breakfast sat beside her and book in hand. She was staring at Mary, just as bewildered as Mary felt.

Mary’s heart hammered in her chest. She noticed when Hilda’s eyes dropped from her face. And then her cheeks colored, for she had forgotten her nakedness in the split-second shock of finding Hilda in Zelda’s place. Mary reached for the sheets, pulled them up about herself.

Hilda looked to the breakfast tray, giving Mary some privacy. “Zelda had to leave. She – she asked me to sit with you…un - until you woke.”

Mary’s brow knit in confusion. Why would Zelda have to leave? Would Hilda then know what it was they had done? For it looked rather suspect if Mary was naked…if Zelda had asked Hilda to be there in her stead. 

Hilda made quick work of putting away her book and moving the tray to Mary’s bedside table. She lifted Mary’s neatly folded nightgown from the bedside table (had Zelda done that?) and held it out to Mary. Hilda had the decency to turn, to give Mary some privacy in dressing. She felt less naked, less vulnerable.

Hilda turned once Mary had settled back into the bed. Hilda sat at the edge of the bed and poured the tea.

“Where did she go?” Mary whispered, knowing that Hilda knew and there would be no judgement on her part. She was safe with Hilda. Hilda would understand for Hilda loved her sister. Perhaps she even knew what it was that Mary was feeling.

Hilda handed Mary a teacup. “She had some urgent business with the Coven.” Hilda smiled, patted Mary’s hair lightly. “She’ll be back before long, I imagine.”

Mary frowned, clasping the warm tea cup in her hands. It smelled of Zelda’s hair. “She’s…she’s very important?”

Hilda nodded. “Quite important.”

“She could have woken me…she…”

Hilda smiled. “She didn’t want to leave either, love.”

Mary sipped the tea. She delighted in the fact that she smelled of Zelda. And now there was the warm, comforting vanilla scent of Hilda at her side. “You…you and she…”

Hilda nodded, bowed her head, her cheeks coloring slightly for she understood the question. “Yes. Yes, love.”

“But you’re…”

“Yes, though not as you may think. We grew up apart from one another. Our mother left her and Edward with their father and went to England where she met my father. It was when we were in school together, when we got to know one another.” Hilda explained carefully. “We knew and yet…I was devoted to her. I felt what it is you feel for her now. She’s magnetic. And quite more than that even, more than anyone gives her credit for anyway.”

Mary knew. Could understand. “But what about…the others?”

Hilda’s lips turned up at the corners. “Zelda enjoys the company of many. As I’m sure you’ve read in _The Unholy Bible_ , it is witch law that witches and warlocks explore all realms of possibility with any who wish to explore. My sister has certain…interests, I suppose, that no _one_ witch or warlock can satisfy.”

Mary felt her stomach knot. How was it, then, that Zelda would enjoy her? Had their early morning together been just another exploration for Zelda?

Hilda smoothed her hand over Mary’s wrinkled brow, let her hand cup her cheek just as Zelda’s had done. Only Hilda’s hand felt softer, was warmer even. “Don’t worry, love. She cares for each of her lovers very much. She does not do what she does not want to, and if you ask me, she particularly likes you.”

But why? Mary could not grasp it. “But I’m…nothing…I’m not a witch…I don’t…”

Hilda smiled cryptically. “She insisted you eat breakfast. She’s afraid you’re not eating enough.” And Hilda turned to fix a bit of toast with freshly made jam, taking Mary’s teacup from her so that they could exchange one for the other.

And Mary ate the delicious the toast. Because Zelda had insisted. “What about you?” Mary ventured to ask, her tongue loser this morning than it had been before. For she had crossed a line. She had entered into this world. She was a part of it and she felt she deserved to dive deeper, to know. She wanted to know.

“Mmm?” Hilda looked up surprised.

“Do you…have others?” Mary bit into the toast, watched Hilda’s cheeks turn rosy as she refreshed her own tea.

Hilda swallowed. “I’m not…not usually as adventurous. I don’t need…well, I don’t need what it is Zelda does. Not in the same way anyway.” She fussed uselessly with the edge of Mary’s gown, pulling it straight over her shoulder.

Mary finished the toast. She recognized something in Hilda. It was hard to decipher, but it was there.

“I should get back to my chores.” Hilda smiled easily, patted Mary against her arm before standing. “I’ll leave the last of the tea for you.” And she patted Mary’s cheek easily, leaning down to press a kiss to the crown of Mary’s head.

Mary’s hand came up to meet Hilda’s before it could lift from her cheek. There was the slightest little crease in Hilda’s brow as she looked down at Mary, so near to her then. “Thank you.” Mary looked into her eyes, deeply, fully for the first time in weeks. “Thank you for everything.”

And the concerned look lifted from Hilda’s brows, replaced with a gentle smile. She patted Mary’s cheek with her fingers. “It’s nothing, love. We’re glad to have you here.” She assured Mary, leaning down to press her lips to Mary’s cheek. She smelled of sugar this close.

Mary turned. Their eyes met. Hilda’s eyes widened, almost as if in fear but Mary did not pull away. Emboldened by her morning spent with Zelda – the memory of it so fresh and clear in her mind and her body was still reeling. Wanting. She leaned forward, grazing her lips against gentle, minty lips. Light, feathery, uncertain. Hilda pulled back, looked into Mary’s eyes.

“I should…” Hilda stuttered.

Mary reached up and touched Hilda’s cheek. Ran her finger along the curve of it, traced her fingers behind Hilda’s ear, tangling in a loose lock of blonde hair. Hilda held her own beauty. There was a pleasant shyness to her that Mary knew, found comforting. Their lips found one another again, more securely than the first time. Peppering kisses until Hilda stood back, straightened her apron.

“Well, then.” She smoothed her hands over her bodice.

Mary’s cheeks burned, for she wasn’t certain if Hilda approved of it or not. But there was a shy smile that grew, that warmed Hilda’s cheeks.

“That was something.”

“Yes.” Mary agreed, finding the ideas of this other world were infiltrating her. Finding that her body was coming to know and accept what it was feeling. “Shouldn’t you have others?”

Hilda chuckled. “Yes, perhaps so.” She tucked Mary into the bed. “Rest now, I’ll bring you that book you were working on in a bit.”

Mary smiled at the care, smiled at the thought that they, too, had just kissed. That a bit of Zelda ran between them, pulled them closer to one another and yet it had been a kiss of their own free will.

And something more was born of the morning.

* * *

Zelda had not returned by the early afternoon.

Sabrina’s fingers threaded into Mary’s pulling her further into the forest that surrounded the Spellman home.

The sun broke through the spaces between leaves and branches above them, lighting the path forward. Mary was grateful to be pulled along by Sabrina for she felt a million miles away from herself. She was lost to the feel of Zelda’s body, her lips, the scent of Hilda and her shyness.

And now there was Sabrina’s little hand clasping onto hers. Leading her somewhere deep into the forest.

Hilda had thought it would be good for Mary to get out, to accompany Sabrina in collecting some odds and ends from the garden. Sabrina had patiently explained to Mary what Hilda used each of her herbs for. Their properties, their innate powers. And Mary had listened half-heartedly with a piece of lavender against her nose.

Now Sabrina was pulling her into the woods. There was something she wished to show Mary. It was the furthest Mary had been from the house in days and she expected for them to come across some angry townsperson. And how would it look to be clasping the hand of the young girl whose association with had nearly taken her life?

But Sabrina held on tight, not caring. And the forest was silent and peaceful.

They came to a stream and Sabrina stopped.

There was the bubbling of water flowing over stones, the shifting of wind in the trees. Mary calmed, felt a pleasant chill race through her at the sight of nature.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Sabrina whispered, also in awe.

Mary nodded and Sabrina clasped her hand tighter, pulling her to a rocky ledge where they could sit and stare down at the stream that widened into what looked like a creak.

“When it’s warmer I like to come out here and swim.” Sabrina explained as she pulled two apples from the depths of her red cape’s pockets. She polished them on her cape and handed one to Mary.

Mary stared at the smooth, gleaming surface of the fruit. This apple was still an apple, but it seemed more vibrant than she had ever remembered an apple looking. The forest about her was more effervescent and she felt as if she were seeing everything for the first time. Her senses were oddly enhanced so that when she bit into the apple it was the sweetest, tangiest thing she had ever tasted before.

It was like the apple Zelda had given her when she had been in her prison cell. Only this apple was eaten in the freedom of nature.

Sabrina watched her as she ate, as if she sensed something was different in her. Mary wondered if it were written on her face, if the girl could know. But certainly she couldn’t…

“Are you feeling better?” Sabrina asked.

And Mary realized that for the past few weeks of being in the Spellman’s home she had been ‘ill’ for a number of those days. She had not thought that Sabrina would be worried for her.

She smiled at the concern. “Yes, much better.”

“I was worried.” Sabrina bowed her head.

Mary’s brow furrowed. “You needn’t worry about me.”

“But you were almost…” A tear had slid its way down Sabrina’s cheek.

“Oh, Sabrina.” Mary moved closer, slid an arm about her. “It has been an upsetting last few weeks, but I’m okay now. You and your aunties have been so wonderful to me.”

Sabrina nodded, relaxing into her embrace. “They like you. A lot.” Sabrina whispered after some time, wiping at her tears.

Mary bit roughly into her apple. “I like them, as well.”

“They never let people in like this. They always want me to stay quiet about who we are. You’re the first person from the outside that they’ve ever allowed in like this.” Sabrina laid back, resting her head in Mary’s lap.

Mary’s fingers trailed through her hair. “I don’t know why they trust me.”

“I think they see something in you.” Sabrina bit into her apple and looked up at Mary, studying her intently.

“In me? Whatever would that be?” Mary laughed, for she was nothing special. She was not a witch, she had no magical powers, she was barely a functioning _mortal_ – as they would say.

Sabrina squinted her eyes. “You look like...”

Mary frowned. “Like who?”

Sabrina bit her lip and looked up to the sky. “Oh, just…someone.”

They returned to silence. Mary wracking her brain to know who _she_ might be. Who could she possibly look like? She existed in this world alone. No parents, no siblings. There was only one of her. She wanted to ask and yet Sabrina’s expression was closed off entirely now. She was staring at the clouds above them.

So, Mary opted for a safe subject. “Is your Aunt Zelda away often?”

Sabrina shrugged. “Sometimes. She’s very important.” Sabrina’s eyes returned to Mary’s and she smiled up at her. “Do you like her?”

Mary’s cheeks grew warm. How would a young child like Sabrina have any idea – ah, but such things were not forbidden amongst witches. Sabrina had read _The Unholy Bible_. Sabrina knew of these things. “Yes, of course I _like_ her…”

Sabrina beamed. “She can come off quite strict and sometimes mean, especially with me, but she just cares an awful lot. I can tell that she likes you.”

Mary’s eyebrow furrowed. “And how is that?”

“She’s always looking at you.” Sabrina twisted her legs back and forth.

Mary’s chest warmed at this, she longed even more for Zelda to return. She wanted to see her again, to bury her face in her neck and inhale her scent, to press their lips together. It felt somehow exhilarating to have Sabrina’s blessing on such matters. For Mary was certain anyone outside of this home would be quick to condemn her, would probably have her put to death in an instant for what it was she wished to be doing to Zelda in that moment.

Sabrina tossed her apple core far away into the forest. “We’d better take the herbs back to Auntie Hilda.”

Mary walked, as if in a dream, back through the forest following a cheerful Sabrina.

She half expected to find Zelda when they returned back to the house, but there was no sight of her. Mary felt her heart drop, an impatience welling in her. But a cheerful Hilda invited her to help make an apple pie – supposedly Zelda’s favorite – and the three of them sat to work in the kitchen and the time rolled on.

Mary expected Zelda to return by dinner, but her place remained empty. Mary helped Hilda wash dishes while Sabrina took to reading in the sitting room.

Hilda could sense her eagerness. Her hand covered Mary’s arm briefly. Mary looked to the younger Spellman sister. “She’ll be back soon.”

Mary felt ridiculous for being so concerned, feeling as deprived as she did.

Hilda leaned up on her toes and pressed her lips shyly to Mary’s cheek, a hidden kiss. Mary turned to her, smiling. A welcomed distraction.

They joined Sabrina in the sitting room, but the words on the page before Mary all jumbled together. She stared at the clock, watching as the second hand moved sluggishly.

“You should be getting off to bed, Sabrina. You have classes in the morning.” Hilda announced as it neared nine.

Sabrina complied, kissing her auntie and then Mary’s cheek.

Hilda closed her book and looked to Mary once the girl was gone. “I wouldn’t wait up all night for her, love.” Hilda cautioned.

Mary smiled half-heartedly. “Go on to bed. I won’t wait too long.”

Hilda closed her book and stood. She came to Mary, cupped her cheek. “Get some rest.” And she leaned in to kiss Mary’s cheek but Mary turned so that their lips met. Hilda smiled against her kiss. “Well then.”


	11. Chapter 11

Part 11

The fire was dimming in the hearth.

Her eyes slid closed, the book in her hands was nothing more than a prop for she hadn’t turned its page for the better part of an hour. The words meant nothing to her, and it was only thoughts of Zelda that swirled about in her mind.

She wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or not when the front door clicked quietly opened and Zelda appeared. She had seen her that very morning but it felt as if ages had passed since she had last laid eyes upon her and in the haziness of nighttime, Mary wondered if she were not just fantasizing her return.

But she could see the way in which Zelda’s tired face shifted, a smile tugged at her lips upon finding Mary waiting for her.

“You should be in bed. It’s late.” Zelda admonished kindly, taking off her cloak. She smelled of the outdoors and incense.

Mary sat her book down, the page she’d been on lost in her haste to stand, to go to Zelda. “Where were you?” She asked sleepily.

Zelda took her into her arms, hugged her. Mary leaned back, pressed her lips shyly against Zelda’s chilly cheek. Zelda laughed deep in her throat and turned so that she could kiss Mary properly. “Matters with the Coven. I’m sorry I had to leave.” She whispered against Mary’s lips. She looked utterly exhausted. “Come, come sit with me.” Zelda took Mary’s hand. She guided Mary to her chair, sitting down and pulling Mary down on top of her.

Mary laughed at this unconventional arrangement of bodies, but was contented. Wrapping an arm about Zelda’s neck, burying her nose against the skin to inhale Zelda’s scent that she had longed for all day.

Zelda lifted the lid of her tobacco box and with one hand managed to light up one of the rolls. The scent was like a homecoming. Zelda inhaled decadently, turned for Mary’s lips which parted. The smoke passed between them, culminating in their lips finding one another’s again.

They sat in contented silence, sharing the tobacco. Mary pinched the last of it between her fingers when Zelda kissed her neck.

Zelda’s hand began working at Mary’s skirts, shifting them, pulling so that she could bury her hand beneath them. Mary could feel Zelda’s touch upon her stockings. She shifted, lifted her hips, eyes trained upon Zelda’s until the stockings were pushed down, drug to her ankles and then Zelda’s hand was upon her bare thighs.

Her legs parted, readily, wanting as Zelda’s hand moved upwards.

Mary felt something burn at her fingers and she yelped.

Zelda laughed and the moment was stilled so that Zelda could take the finished tobacco roll from Mary, could crush it out and then she took her hand and inspected it in the dim lighting. “Just a little burn.” Mary’s legs shifted together, watched as Zelda’s lips came to press against the burn, her tongue flattening against it. The skin burned, tingled and then Zelda lifted Mary’s hand for her to see. “All better.”

And the mark had completely vanished.

_Witchcraft._

Mary was lightheaded by it all. She wrapped her arms about Zelda, pressed their lips together. Zelda’s hand was again buried beneath her skirts and this time she met with Mary’s warm wetness. Mary gasped against Zelda’s lips, relief washing over her. To have Zelda here with her, to be touched by her, cared for by her.

And Zelda cared for her until she was wreathing against her, lips pressed roughly into her collarbone where she could call out and not be heard throughout the house. And Zelda held her close until the sensations in her body quietened. Held her tightly, lovingly, pressing kisses to her forehead and hands against where they were needed until Mary’s body calmed.

Mary snuggled against Zelda.

Zelda stroked her hair in the silence of the night. The fire still crackling. The house stood hushed.

“Everyone says you’re very powerful.” Mary whispered against Zelda’s neck.

She could feel the sleepy laugh that resonated deeply in her chest. “I suppose I am.”

“I want to know.”

Zelda held her tighter. “I know. But not tonight. It’s been a long day. Let’s get to bed.”

And Zelda nudged at her, took her by the hand and led her up the stairs, to Mary’s room. She undressed her, undressed herself and they slid beneath the sheets, bodies finding one another again and again in the night.

* * *

It seemed that later would remain an indeterminate later.

For Zelda was gone the following morning from her side – disappeared into thin air and Mary was bereft by her disappearance. She wanted their limbs to tangle as they had the previous morning, the previous evening. And she was met with only cool, empty space beside her.

She found her nightgown that had not been worn the previous evening and secured her robe about her pleasantly sated body. She would need to wash up, but she needed to know where Zelda was. For if she had left again as she had the previous day, then Mary would have expected Hilda again. This little omission led her to believe that Zelda had not left the house.

And upon setting foot on the main level of the home she knew that this hunch was true.

The serene sense of calm that permeated most mornings in the Spellman home had somehow given way to complete and utter mayhem. Zelda was pacing restlessly and smoking like a chimney while Hilda was elbow deep in flour with smears of various ingredients upon her face and Sabrina was relegated to pulling out the fancy China and polishing silver.

Mary surveyed the scene; not yet awake enough to understand what it was that was happening around her. She could only tell that some fancy dinner was about to take place.

Zelda caught Mary’s eye as she inspected a China plate, grimacing at a crack that had formed in the porcelain. “Damn, damn, damn.” She cursed.

Whatever it was that was happening it appeared that it had taken Zelda by surprise.

“If you had reminding me yesterday, like I instructed you to do, I would have known to fetch Mother’s China. This is dreadful, Hildegard.” Zelda growled.

Hilda sighed, rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “You were rather preoccupied yesterday, as it were.”

Zelda shot her a very pointed look. Straightened from her survey of the dishes and then rounded on Hilda. “What was that?” A knife was easily slid from the top of the table upon which Hilda was working. It shown in the rising light of the morning as Zelda wielded it expertly. Sabrina stopped what it was she was doing to watch her aunt, as if these were the theatrics of their everyday life. Mary watched in abject horror as Zelda backed Hilda into the worktable. Mary could see the rage gleaming in Zelda’s green eyes.

Hilda, for her part, did not seem fearful of the knife now pressed to her throat. She simply looked up at her sister. “Let’s not put on a show this morning, hmm love?”

And Zelda’s eyes snapped to Mary and upon remembering her presence, she stepped back. Wiped at her brow, lowered the knife back to the worktable.

“You let me worry about this. Get out of the kitchen.” Hilda turned back to her work as if her sister hadn’t just threatened her life.

Zelda uneasily dragged at her tobacco. She looked, almost guiltily, at Mary and then slipped past her. Disappearing up the stairs.

“Let her cool off, love. She’s only unhappy I forgot to remind her of the dinner we’re having tonight.” Hilda tried to assure Mary after observing her glance longingly after Zelda and then back to the kitchen – as if not knowing which way to turn. Hilda had come to Mary, placed her hands about her shoulders. “Shall I get you some tea? Some toast?”

Mary allowed herself to be led to the kitchen table and was sat across from Sabrina who was polishing and looking rather nonplussed by all that had just occurred.

Hilda served Mary without receiving a response and returned to her work. Completely unfazed.

It appeared that death threats were a norm in the Spellman home? 

Sabrina caught Mary’s eye over the table and grinned. “Auntie Zee always gets a little upset when the Blackwoods come for dinner.”

Mary’s eyes widened. The Blackwoods would be coming here for dinner? Mary’s face flushed; the teacup she’d been holding went crashing into pieces on the kitchen floor.

* * *

Somehow Zelda had remained elusive throughout the rest of the day.

It was Hilda who somehow remained calmed in the midst of the wild flourish of it all, who came to Mary to help her dress for the evening and assure her that her presence was, indeed, wanted. “What’s happened is past, love. He won’t wish to harm you now.” Hilda spoke as she brushed and rolled up Mary’s hair into a perfect little bun at the back of her head. Mary’s hair had never looked better, yet she had never been so nervous before in her life.

And why wasn’t Zelda coming to her?

Hilda smoothed a loose strand of hair behind Mary’s ear and Mary looked up at her. “Does she often do that?”

“What, love?” Hilda looked naïve to the question.

“Threaten you? Like…that.”

Hilda smiled a little, patted Mary’s shoulder. “She stresses herself out. She gets worked up when she feels she’s lost control of a situation and she doesn’t enjoy being surprised.”

Mary turned to Hilda, placed her hands on her hips. Hilda looked rather caught off guard by this action. Though slowly allowed her hands to come rest on Mary’s shoulders. “It doesn’t mean that she should…”

“Oh, it’s different between us. We have…an understanding.” Hilda assured her. “I’m…well, I’m grateful for your concern, but I can handle myself. I’ve had years of experience with her.” Hilda winked, smiled at their closeness, perhaps at having a confidant. Hilda’s hand reached up, stroked Mary’s cheek. “She’s not a bad person. I hope you don’t think…”

Mary shook her head. No. For she had seen Zelda for who she was. Flaws and all. It had been surprising but perhaps expected, especially in this home. “No.” Mary finally muttered, used Hilda to pull herself up to her full height. And then she leaned down to press her lips to Hilda’s, chastely, carefully. “Thank you for helping me.”

Hilda flushed. “I’d better go help Zelda before the Blackwoods arrive. Please, try not to worry so, love.” Hilda squeezed Mary’s hand in reassurance as she went.

But Mary was hardly reassured.

* * *

They ran into one another in the hallway. Quite literally.

Zelda looked like a tightly coiled animal, afraid of every little sound, every touch. She was so very on edge. Their bodies had collided and Zelda’s shoulder fell lightly into the wall, a hand moving to cover her heart. Mary, against the other wall, stared at the gorgeously pieced together woman across from her.

Zelda’s eye dropped to the space between them as she righted herself. She sniffed. “I apologize.”

“It’s alright.” Mary reached for her but she stepped away. Mary’s heart thudded against her ribcage, chest tightening at this refusal.

Zelda smoothed out her dress and then seemed to get ahold of herself. “I’m rather on edge, I shouldn’t have…well, you’ll have to forgive me.” And she moved bashfully forward, cupping Mary’s cheek, running a finger over her skin so that Mary warmed beneath her touch. She had been elusive all day but it no longer seemed to matter for their lips came together and Zelda kissed Mary reassuringly.

Though they both heard the knock on the door downstairs and Zelda went rigid against her.

“I’m sorry.” Zelda whispered again and then seemed to grow to her full height and turned from Mary, leading them to the stairs, down to where Hilda and Sabrina stood side-by-side greeting their guests.

The Blackwoods.

There was Constance Blackwood with a babe wrapped up in blankets in her arms, looking as sweet as Mary always remembered her to be. She was such a lovely woman, very striking features. She emanated warmth and kindness and Mary watched as she and Hilda exchanged kisses in greeting.

But then there was Faustus in the doorway, their other child in his arms. His presence made Mary’s blood run cold. She hesitated on the stairs, hanging back from this scene as she watched Zelda sweep in to greet Constance, to coo at the babies, and then to receive a kiss – on the lips - from Faustus before taking the babe in his arms into her own. She cradled the baby with such love, such compassion. “My little Judith.” She whispered, kissing the baby’s forehead. 

There was something rather thrilling in seeing Zelda handle the baby so gently and carefully. It made Mary wonder what it had been like when Sabrina had been a baby. Would Zelda have held her and fawned all over her like that?

There was a brief moment in which Constance’s gaze fell to Mary’s form in the background and her eyes alighted. “Ms. Wardwell.” She exclaimed.

Mary, having felt invisible to this reception, suddenly realized that others could see her. She had no choice but to step the one step more to the ground level and then she was moving to greet Constance. “H-hello.” Her voice quivered, not knowing what was expected of her.

She felt a hand on the small of her back and realized that Hilda was offering her some kind of reassurance. She could feel warmth - perhaps it was magic! – pass from Hilda’s hand to her back, the sensation creeping up her spine.

Constance shuffled the baby in her arms to extend her hand to Mary. Mary received her hand kindly. A peace offering. “I am glad to see you here.” Constance spoke clearly so that Mary would understood what it was she meant.

“I am glad to be here.” Mary smiled, feeling somewhat more at ease, somewhat more welcome into this strange scenario. But then she glanced up to see Zelda and Faustus communing over baby Judith and they looked strangely at ease with one another. It made Mary feel apprehensive.

Zelda’s eyes caught hers as she held the baby to her chest, rocking her slightly as she said something to Faustus.

“I’ve prepared quite the feast; shall we move to the kitchen?” Hilda announced and they all seemed to migrate towards the warm aromas of Hilda’s decadent cooking. The twins were put down to play in the living room.

Zelda made certain that she sat next to Mary. It was the closest they had been all day. Mary longed for her, for her attentions. Though it would be selfish to think that Zelda could solely focus upon her amidst all the others now littering _their_ space. Zelda had to play the good hostess.

Mary could not look at Faustus who sat across from Zelda. He seemed to equally avoid Mary. It was Zelda he seemed drawn to, whom he animatedly addressed as if she were his equal, perhaps as if she were another man. They spoke of matters that Mary did not understand, the words lost to her as she tried to reconcile all that was happening around her with all that she was feeling.

It was only after the second course that Mary felt a wave of comfort wash over her when Zelda’s hand found her knee beneath the table. Zelda was mid-conversation about something pertaining to crops that year. Yet her warm hand rested firmly against Mary, as if in reassurance. Her fingernails squeezed lightly, a finger rubbing reassuring paths across Mary’s skirt and Mary very nearly dropped her fork.

Faustus seemed to notice this foible. His eyes flashing, briefly, to Mary. She felt her cheeks flush and was mortified when something akin to understanding crossed his features as he turned back to Zelda.

Mary expected Zelda’s hand to be retracted. Instead Zelda’s posture straightened further and she sought out Mary’s hand that had come to rest beneath the table. Entwining their fingers reassuringly into her own. All while not missing a beat in her conversation which had turned to crop prices. Tobacco would be doing very well soon, and praise Satan for it.

Mary’s mind reeled at this turn of phrase.

And Faustus had noticed. And then he began to take more notice of Mary sitting quietly between Zelda and Hilda. As if being protected by the sisters. Her cheeks warmed the more he noticed.

Zelda reluctantly untangled their fingers when dinner ended and leaned in to Mary. “Faustus and I have matters to discuss. It will only be a moment.”

And Mary could not ask, could not question it. Hilda and Constance cleared the table as Sabrina went to play with the twins and Mary watched as Faustus and Zelda disappeared into the home.

She felt a hand on her arm, looked to find Hilda smiling at her. “It’s alright, love. They’ll be back in a moment.”

Mary smiled at her half-heartedly, feeling oddly out of sorts. She attempted to help clean, but Hilda shooed her away, told her to go keep Sabrina company with the twins.

But there was something about the babies that made Mary uncomfortable, made her not wish to be near to them. Perhaps there was envy that Zelda loved them so, perhaps it was because they were a part of her tormentor. She watched blindly as Sabrina played with the twins carefully before her eyes wondered to the door in the wall.

They would have disappeared there, wouldn’t they? What sort of _discussion_ would they be having?

Her mind raced, she could take no more. She had to know. And with everyone upstairs occupied, Mary receded into the background. She felt for the doorway in the wall. It opened for her.

She disappeared inside.

The smell of Zelda and tobacco swirled up to greet her as she crept down. She heard voices as she came closer, could nearly make them out clearly as she stayed hidden away in the shadow of the staircase.

“…you can’t interfere this time. It will look rather suspect.”

Zelda laughed, “you know I have no objections, but when it came to her it was out of the Dark Lord’s spitefulness. I couldn’t let it happen.”

“He is not pleased with you or _her_.”

“But she shouldn’t be separated yet. You know how it works.”

“Unfortunately, I do.” There was a silence that passed between them.

“Stop.” Zelda inhaled.

Mary’s pulse quickened. She needed to know, to see what it was that was happening between them. She dared to move closer, listening as clothing rustled together. And when she glanced around the corner she saw that Zelda was holding out her roll of smoking tobacco with Faustus’ head buried at the base of her neck.

“No, Faustus.” Zelda pushed at him lightly, but he did not seem to comply with what she said.

The stair creaked beneath Mary’s foot and Zelda’s eyes flashed open. She pushed at Faustus then and Faustus turned. His eyes met Mary’s, his cheeks flushed, spite flaring up in his features.

Zelda smoked, rubbed at her forehead. Faustus lifted his pipe to his lips. He blew out a cloud of blue smoke as he spoke. “I see you’re a curious thing, aren’t you? You’ve taken to our Zelda, have you?”

“Faustus.” Zelda warned, put a hand on his shoulder.

“And Zelda’s quite taken with you.” Faustus was addressing Mary now, looking her over. “I can see why.”

“Save it, Faustus. She’s not interested in you. You tried to kill her.” Zelda taunted him as she moved to Mary. “Are you alright?” She reached carefully, gingerly for Mary.

Mary nodded carefully, confusedly. “What is this?” She whispered, biting back the urge to cry. For she did not want to appear weak before Faustus Blackwood.

Zelda pressed a gentle kiss to Mary’s forehead. “Business, darling. Just business.”

“But you…you…with him…”

Zelda’s lips pursed. She smoked again. “Yes. Sometimes.”

“I don’t understand.” Mary’s voice was a near whisper.

“Well you needn’t worry,” Faustus’ voice came from the chair in the corner of the room where he sat smoking. “When you come along it usually ends.”

Mary’s brow furrowed. Zelda leaned in to her, pressed a kiss to Mary’s cheek, pulled back to look into her eyes. “Are you cross with me?”

And Mary could hardly answer for she was not certain if she were cross or confused or upset or angry or jealous or…it all rather blurred together. She allowed Zelda to kiss her, surprised by how open it was. To kiss Zelda before Faustus. It was thrilling, shocking, invigorating, vindicating. And Zelda held her tight, pressed their lips more firmly together, almost possessively.

And Faustus watched as he smoked his pipe.


	12. Chapter 12

Part 12

She had retreated to her bedroom, had run away from the unwelcome guests after Zelda had so frivolously kissed her before Judge Blackwood. As if that were something out of the norm, something completely admissible and right. But it had felt wrong standing so openly before him. It felt as if she were being pulled into some game that was playing out between them. She was nothing more than a pawn to them – to her.

Her stomach sank at the thought. She had thought it was more than that…that she mattered more than that to Zelda.

Apparently she had not.

Mary wiped furiously at a tear that stubbornly slid down her cheek. She pulled her legs up tighter against her chest.

Some time had passed. The house had grown still in the night and Mary had begun to think she had been forgotten. For no one had come to check on her, no one had made certain that she was alright after she’d made her way back up the basement stairs and had headed directly to her bedroom without a word to anyone.

She was accustomed to being forgotten, looked over. So it did not surprise her to be left, in the dark, as she always was.

However, it would appear that this was no longer true. Not in this house. For her eyes came open wide when the doorknob twisted, and Zelda slid into the darkened bedroom. All silken robes and loose hair.

She approached the bed hesitantly, her confident gait slowed, uncharacteristic…uncertain. She ran a hand through her hair, settling at the edge of the bed.

“Are you alright?” Zelda asked softly.

Mary felt foolish tears prick at her eyes. How many times had she wanted someone to come to her, to ask her that? And yet she was furious with this woman. She nodded her head up and down but the tears spilled over.

“Mary,” Zelda shifted forwards, placing her hand carefully atop Mary’s curled knee. Afraid to touch her and yet Mary sensed she wished she could do more, and the thought made her chest swell. “Mary, what is it?”

Mary shook her head. “You…you…just…and I…”

“It was wrong of me, wasn’t it? This whole day has been dreadful. Just dreadful. Oh, Mary…please…” Zelda was coming closer to her, pressed her lips against her wettened cheeks, reaching to hold Mary yet afraid to at the same time.

Until Mary fell into her embrace, allowed Zelda’s arms to wrap her up, for them to shift so that Zelda settled on the bed beside her and took her against her chest, holding her, stroking her hair, the length of her arm, her fingers igniting sensation in her skin.

“You disappeared.” Mary muttered against Zelda’s chest. She could hear the even beating of her heart beneath her ear. It was calming, metronomic pulsing of it.

Zelda’s lips found her forehead and she kissed Mary. Biding time. “I know, it wasn’t very nice of me, was it?”

Mary shook her head, lulled like a child into Zelda’s half-explanations. For there were never answers, were there? But there was kindness, there was a sense of security in her arms, in the way she touched her so carefully.

“I suppose Hilda and Sabrina are used to my moods. But you…you’re more sensitive to them, aren’t you?” Zelda whispered, holding her tighter. “There is so much I want to tell you.”

Mary sat up and looked at Zelda in the blackness of night. “Then tell me.”

Zelda’s face softened into a tired smile, her hand cupped Mary’s cheek. Her thumb stroked her skin. “In time…in time you will know.”

“Why must everything be such a mystery?” Mary cried and was shocked in herself when she pushed Zelda’s hand away from her face, succeeding in knocking Zelda right upside the nose. Zelda tumbled back, hands going to her face.

Mary sat back, mortified. She watched as hurt flashed briefly in Zelda’s eyes before she calmed herself. Mary wanted to reach for her, to assuage her, to make sure that she hadn’t hurt her, but she was afraid. She held back, watching as Zelda cupped her nose and then suddenly her shoulders were shaking. Mary felt her heart sink, for she had not intended on hurting her! She would hate to see her cry because she had pushed at her so accidentally and…

Zelda was laughing. “Oh, Mary. I suppose I do deserve that.” She held out her arms, beckoned for Mary to come to her and Mary came, glad to know that she was not harmed badly.

“Does it hurt?”

Zelda shook her head. “No, no darling.” And she pressed their lips together, kissing Mary reassuringly. “But I’m afraid I’ve hurt you. Haven’t I?”

Mary sighed against Zelda. She threaded her fingers through Zelda’s golden locks, watched as the hair played against her fingers. “Do you love him?”

Zelda’s chest reverberated with deep laughter. “Love? Faustus Blackwood? Certainly not.”

“But he seems to…well, he certainly likes you and you…”

“There was a time,” Zelda held Mary tighter against her body. “Long, long ago when we were at school together. He wanted to marry me. But we wanted very different things.” Her fingers ghosted over Mary’s back again. “I still care for him in ways, but love?” She said the word as if it left a bad taste on her tongue. “No, it certainly was never love.”

Mary felt the stirring of something deep inside of her. There was heat from where her body rested against Zelda, she thought she saw little bursts of light flickering in the darkness.

“Mary,” Zelda’s voice had grown sober. “You’re going to be cross with me when I tell you this. When I know you don’t yet know what to think of me or what is happening around you. But I must go away for several days. I hope it will take no more than a week at most.”

Mary’s grasp on her tightened. She looked up to her again, questioning.

“Faustus and I must attend to a Coven in the South. There is a special birth that will take place and it is our duty to be present. I must…go.”

“But you…you and…” Mary felt the tears return and she loathed herself for crying so readily, so easily when it came to Zelda.

“Shh,” Zelda soothed her the best she could.

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. We leave at dawn.” Zelda yawned, as if already exhausted by the idea of it all.

Mary shook her head.

“Darling,” Zelda reached out for Mary again, cupped her face between her hands. “I will return. It’s only a few nights away.”

But Mary’s body already longed, already ached for a separation that had not even yet begun. For Zelda was here before her.

But already Mary’s mind raced with thoughts of just what it was Zelda and Faustus would do when left alone to travel together.

“Don’t think about that.” Zelda cautioned. “It will only hurt you now. And that is not the reason for this trip. This is strictly business.”

Mary was livid, felt her heart pounding, racing. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know how…how am I supposed to react? Nothing – nothing makes sense.”

“Mary.” Zelda reached for her, their bodies twisting and turning so that Mary ended up trapped beneath Zelda. Zelda who bowed her head and pressed her lips to Mary’s neck, licking it with her tongue before sucking the tender flesh between her lips. The motion calmed Mary, sent another jolt of energy and light through her. “Don’t you know,” her voice was soft and sweet against the hollow of her ear.

And Mary knew, could feel it through every inch of her being. She knew. She felt the knowing spread from where Zelda kissed her, felt it flow down through her entire being as if a great waterfall had washed over her. It was powerful what passed between them, powerful just what their bodies could feel pressed together, hovering, even angry and upset and confused as she was.

Zelda’s hand snaked down her side and she felt her sudden nakedness, felt Zelda’s own flesh pressing down upon hers. The thin layers of clothing disappeared. Zelda sat astride Mary, fondling a breast beneath each hand. Her right hand shifted upwards, Mary’s breast rolling beneath her palm until Zelda’s hand came to rest atop her heart. She could feel the touch, so warm and welcoming against her burning skin. Zelda was looking into her eyes, watching her closely. “I will leave you with this.” Zelda whispered and then Mary saw a rose-colored light emit forth from Zelda’s hand, the current from it passing deep into her chest, its energy wrapping about her heart.

“The heart is the most precious organ in the body. You must guard it closely.” Zelda spoke softly as she took Mary’s right hand in her left. She lifted Mary’s hand to come and rest just above her own breast. And Mary could feel Zelda’s heartbeat beneath the pads of her fingers, watched as a matching light came forth to wrap itself about her hand.

And as she laid there, she felt their hearts. Beating in tandem.

It was ridiculous what the sensation stirred within her. It was more intimate than anything they had shared. This combined heart. She felt it pulsing between her legs. Zelda moved against her, knowing, encouraging.

The release was a surprise. It was less and yet more than before. And Zelda bowed to kiss her, to press her lips furiously against Mary’s luminescent skin, to suckle at a breast before she found her way between Mary’s legs. She sought permission that Mary willingly gave – though she was uncertain as to what it was Zelda was doing.

First there were fingers, swirling against her. Zelda’s lips against her thigh. She wanted. And she knew. It was only the beginning of something and yet it was there.

“What are you doing?” Mary whispered.

“Something I think you’ll enjoy…if I may?” Zelda pressed a kiss above her curls.

Mary frowned, leaning up to see just what it was Zelda was doing. Zelda locked eyes with her as she let her finger run through Mary’s slickness. Mary shivered, feeling cold. Colder yet when Zelda parted her folds and blew lightly against her. She whimpered, the sheets clutched tight in her hands.

It was her tongue that met with Mary’s arousal first. Brief, light. “There’s something else.”

Mary groaned, her mind racing. For Zelda continued to drop these small proclamations that were confusing her already foggy mind.

Zelda rubbed her with her fingers, eyes seeking. “Hilda seems to care for you a great deal and…in my absence I was hoping…”

Mary’s eyes widened. Was Zelda asking her…. oh, but Zelda’s fingers, Zelda’s mouth so very near…but Hilda…

“She’s not very good at taking care of herself and I think that you just might be able to help her.” Zelda had brought her near an edge but then her hand was gone, replaced by little kisses that made Mary whine and twist and want for more.

“Do you understand?” Zelda stopped her motions entirely and Mary nearly screamed.

“Y-yes. Yes.”

And Zelda smiled. Thrilled. And she bowed her head to worship Mary.

* * *

She arose to the first rays of light threatening to peek out over the horizon. The room was a dreamy mauve.

The bed beside her empty.

She felt at a loss, bereft.

Would Zelda be gone already? Why must they always part like this? Why must she run from Mary in the light of day?

There was the whiny of a horse somewhere off in the distance. Mary sat up, threw her legs from the bed – tired as they were from the night before. She pulled on her nightgown haphazardly as she looked out the window.

She was taken aback by the image of Zelda atop a fine, cinnamon horse. She wore a deep burgundy jacket and pants which allowed her to side astride the horse. Mary’s heart hammered, envious of the fine beast.

And there was Faustus Blackwood atop his black horse. They were about to part.

Mary found her footing, grabbed for her robe and threw open her door, clamoring down the stairs to the front door.

The morning was chilly, knocking her quite aback as she came stumbling out to the porch.

Zelda looked to her from her spot atop her horse, a little gleam of happiness smarting at her eyes.

Judge Blackwood huffed at her arrival. “We must be going, Zelda.”

“One minute more won’t hurt.” Zelda scoffed at him and threw her leg over her horse to dismount. And she came to Mary who met her on the lawn before the house. The grass was dewy and wet beneath her bare feet but all she could see was Zelda’s luscious green eyes as they fixed upon her, as she came to stand before her. “You’ll take care of things while I’m gone?”

Mary nodded, feeling suddenly naked and uncertain in the presence of Judge Blackwood. Feeling foolish for tearing down the stairs as she had, feeling as if perhaps she needed Zelda just a bit too much.

“I won’t be gone long. I promise.” Zelda reached for Mary, pulled her close. She dragged Mary’s hand upwards, placed it against her heart. “I’ve bound us together so that I can feel you and you me. Whenever you need.” And she lifted Mary’s fingers to kiss each one of them.

Mary’s eyes drifted over Zelda’s shoulder to where Judge Blackwood was circling his horse impatiently.

“I’ll be back very soon.” Zelda whispered, bringing Mary back to her, kissing her so gently and so sweetly.

And then Zelda glanced over Mary’s shoulder and nodded. Mary felt an arm wrap about her, pulling her away from Zelda. She turned to find that Hilda was beside her.

Zelda returned to her horse. She pulled herself expertly into the saddle and glanced back to smile at Mary, at Hilda. And then she and Faustus were off. First a trot, and then full speed and then some strange tunnel appeared, and they disappeared into nothingness.

Mary’s stomach shattered; fear pulsed through her veins.

“It’s alright, love.” Hilda whispered. “Just a bit of magic. Makes the traveling easier. They’ll be back in no time. Come on now. I’ll make us a bit of tea and toast and we’ll have a nice breakfast.” Hilda pulled Mary close to her, ushered her back inside of the house that felt oddly empty without Zelda.

* * *

“How can I live without thee, how forego

Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,

To live again in these wild woods forlorn?

Should God create another Eve, and I

Another rib afford, yet loss of thee

Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel

The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,

Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.”

Mary’s finger came to rest against the page of _Paradise Lost_ , the words illuminated, text strangely glowing on the page. She blinked, wondering if it was some clever trick of the candlelit room, yet the words glowed brighter yet.

“Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.”

Mary blinked again and the text returned to its normal inky hue.

Sabrina, who had taken to the crook of her arm with a book on alchemy – her current favorite subject – glanced where Mary’s thumb had come to rest on the page. Mary could feel the girl reading the words but wondered if she should not allow it, for something strange had come over her.

But the girl covered her hand and pointed. “Eve was never Adam’s true love.” The girl spoke matter-of-factly, her own text forgotten.

“Who was then?” Mary asked, glad for the girl’s presence. Her body was a distraction from the loss she had felt that morning. It was as if the girl knew.

Hilda glanced up at them from where she sat near to the fire. Her eyes met with Mary’s. They had been tiptoeing around one another all day. Little touches here, little touches there, an accidental brush…

“Adam loved Lilith. But he hurt her.” Sabrina whispered.

Mary frowned. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he didn’t want a woman to be his equal and she was – and more!” Sabrina shifted so that she could lay her head in Mary’s lap and look up at her.

“And what do we know, love?” Hilda’s voice intoned.

Sabrina grinned. “Women can do exactly what men can. Sometimes even more and sometimes even better.”

Mary laughed at this sentiment. Something she had never heard of before, something she had never dreamt of hearing spoken aloud. And by someone so young!

“Lilith was too strong to stay in the Garden of Eden.” Sabrina mused. It was almost as if she knew the woman! As if she had spoken to this biblical figure before. “I love Lilith.” Sabrina whispered as she cuddled against Mary, wrapping her arms about her middle, her eyes dripping with sleep.

Mary’s fingers moved through Sabrina’s blonde locks, soothing her into sleep. The girl was warm against her. She certainly had Zelda’s fiery nature and her self-assurance which Mary envied.

Hilda was then before her, looking down at the sleeping girl. “I should take her to bed.” She whispered.

Mary smiled, “I can.”

And somehow she eased the lithe girl into her arms and Sabrina wrapped herself about Mary, almost protectively. Hilda followed behind as they wound their way up the stairs and down the hall to Sabrina’s room. The girl reluctantly unclasped herself from Mary and she and Hilda worked to tuck the girl in, to press kisses to her cheeks and then they left her.

They were alone for a minute in the hallway then, staring at one another.

Hilda shifted awkwardly, uncertainly. “I should…the candles…”

And Mary swallowed, feeling equally uncertain. She needed Zelda’s brazenness. She did not yet trust herself.

And Hilda turned to walk away but then Mary also turned, and they succeeded in running into one another. Another collision, Hilda clasping at her face, Mary her arm. “Oh! Did I hurt you?” Mary placed her hands about Hilda, found herself pressing the smaller woman against a painting on the wall.

Hilda’s breath hitched for a moment. She swallowed. “No, it’s…perfectly alright. Just a little bump.” Her eyes dropped to Mary’s lips.

Mary pulled Hilda’s hand away from her face and examined the cheek in the dim lighting of the hallway. “I’m so clumsy, I…only last night I managed to hurt Zelda, I shouldn’t…oh, it’s turning red. Does it hurt?”

Hilda giggled at this. “No, lamb. No. It’s quite alright.”

And Mary held her, clasped there against the wall, their eyes curiously gazing at one another until Mary bowed her head and pressed her lips to Hilda’s cheek. “There…perhaps that will help?”

Hilda shrugged, eyes smiling. “Perhaps so…but perhaps…if maybe you…”

And Mary smiled at this permission that she had sought, needed. She leaned down. Their lips found one another, shyly at first, and then a proper kiss. Hilda’s kisses were warm and melty and indulgent. Her lips were soft and inviting and timid.

Mary stepped away. “Better?”

Hilda nodded. “Yes. Now…I should…” And she nodded towards the stairs and Mary nodded in understanding. “Sleep well.” Hilda patted her arm.

Mary allowed Hilda to escape away from her.

It was different with Hilda. It was a slow dance, this.

When Hilda disappeared down the stairs, Mary retreated to her room.

It was cold and dark.

There was the faint hint of Zelda’s scent that lingered in the room. Had she only left that morning? It felt an eternity. 

Mary did not light a candle to dress. She pulled off her dress and her skirts and stockings and found a certain freedom in her nakedness.

Her chest was glowing. She became enamored of it, this pulsating beat that meant that Zelda was also experiencing the pulsing of her own heart. Her hand went to her chest.

Her eyes caught, then, on her own reflection in the window, could make out the supple outline of her body. She had never looked upon herself in such a way before but now…it was as if she were discovering herself for the first time. The curve of her breasts, the tautness of her stomach, the bone of her hips, the muscles of her thighs, the space between her legs.

_Bone of my bone thou art._

Something shifted, caught her eye outside the window. She reached, frightened, for her robe and clasped it to her chest.

Had there been someone out in the woods? It had looked almost like a figure standing just there…and yet…no. It couldn’t have been.

There were animals in the woods. It could have been a deer; it could have been a wolf…

She stood frozen before the window, waiting for another shift, another motion, any indication that something was out prowling about. But the woods laid still and empty before her.

No, it had been nothing. She consoled herself as she climbed between the sheets of her bed and wrapped her arms about a pillow that still smelled of crushed roses and tobacco. She inhaled the familiar scent, willing her mind to stop racing.

It was the pounding of her heart that finally comforted her. Her hand reached to cover her ribcage, resting against where her skin faintly glowed in the darkened room.

Zelda’s heart soothed hers, lulling her heart back to an even tempo.

She was safe. It had only been a trick of the mind, nothing more.


	13. Chapter 13

Part 13

“Thee I have missed, and thought it long, deprived

Thy presence; agony of love till now

Not felt, nor shall be twice; for never more

Mean I to try, what rash untried I sought,

The pain of absence from thy sight.”

The next day it rained.

It smelled of dirt and new life.

Mary helped Hilda deep clean the floorboards and dust away the remnants of winter. It felt good to tend to the house. To give back to it for all that it had given to her.

In the afternoon, the three of them gathered in the kitchen for Hilda to teach the two novices a bit of kitchen witchcraft. Hilda was very adept at the handling of the various herbs and ingredients; Mary found it intriguing to see her operating in her natural element. She moved deftly about, owning the space as she taught Mary and Sabrina a simple healing remedy and another to ward off the things that might go bump in the night. Mary watched as Sabrina tried her hand at mixing ingredients together.

“If Auntie Zee were here, she’d let me slit my arm to really test if it worked or not.” Sabrina grinned to herself as she focused on her measurements.

Mary looked, a bit horrified, at Hilda who, in turn, gave her a slightly mortified look and then ran her fingers through Sabrina’s hair. “Well let’s not have any self-harm while she’s gone. Hmm, just in case, lamb?” Hilda kissed her niece’s cheek.

Sabrina wondered off to bed early – no longer needing the warmth of the fire at bedtime. She wanted to read the alchemical books that Hilda had loaned to her, taken by the idea of it.

Mary and Hilda sat timidly before the fire across from one another.

Hilda was darning stockings. Mary watched the rise and fall of her hand as she worked with the material. The fabric was very fine, silk perhaps. They appeared to be Zelda’s stockings, the more closely Mary looked. She swallowed.

Zelda was everywhere and yet nowhere.

Mary’s eye fell wistfully to the wooden box that held Zelda’s tobacco.

“Where did she go?” Mary’s voice broke, her fingers reaching out to touch the finely finished and carefully carved box.

Hilda charted the movement of her hand. “To a Coven in Winnsboro, Carolina, I believe.”

Carolina seemed miles and miles away.

“What does she have to do there?” Mary looked to Hilda, begging her to tell her something. For she knew these women and yet she did not. There was so much kept from her. She wanted, needed for Hilda to tell her something, anything.

There was a mild panic that welled up in Hilda’s eyes but she simply looked back to her task, hand shoved down the crotch of her sister’s stockings. “She’s presiding over the birth to a high-ranking witch. It’s the first daughter to come and they have to take special precautions.”

It seemed like the truth, but why would Zelda be called upon for this task? “Is she often gone away like this?” Mary nudged the lid off the wooden box, inhaled the scent that had become Zelda.

“Yes,” Hilda’s voice came, closer than Mary had expected. “Quite often.” Hilda reached into the box and extracted one of the rolls of tobacco. She held it out for Mary to place between her lips and then with an utterance of words beneath her breath the end of it caught fire. Mary’s eyes widened, not accustom to this witchcraft, and pulled the smoke into her lungs, coughing a bit. She offered it to Hilda but Hilda shook her head. 

“No, no thank you. None for me.” Hilda settled back down in her chair.

Mary smoked, the scent enveloping them. Reminding them of the missing link between them.

“I don’t touch it … save for when she’s away for a long while.” Hilda spoke quietly as she bowed her head to focus on what it was she was doing. Her words petered out.

They sat in silence. Mary tasted the tobacco, recalling her first encounter with it, evoking the woman as she drew it in between her lips. She caught Hilda eyeing her, Hilda watching.

Hilda buried her head again when their eyes met. “You know, what she asked of you.” Hilda’s voice was soft.

Mary looked at her, fully present just then with the younger Spellman sister. “Yes…”

“You needn’t worry about it. You don’t…don’t feel as if it’s some obligation to you. She thinks that she’s helping me, but I’m perfectly…”

“Hilda.” Mary silenced her babble, tapped off her cigarette ash in the dish Zelda used. “Do _you_ want what she suggested?”

Hilda’s cheeks colored. She returned to her darning and Mary felt momentarily spurned. She had thought…and yet now Hilda was acting tepid.

“Zelda’s always been...” Hilda’s voice was soft and uncertain and she focused intently upon her darning. “People always notice her. She’s…intoxicating, sexy, smart…she knows how…how to speak to people, how to command attention. And I…” Hilda’s hands had stilled against her work.

“I know how…” Mary looked at her own hands, felt Hilda’s eyes upon her then. “I know how that feels. To be overlooked.” Mary’s eyes met Hilda’s. “But you’re more than just that, aren’t you?”

Hilda’s brow creased.

“Since I’ve come to – to stay here, you’ve been nothing but lovely to me. You – you welcomed me with open arms. You nursed me back to health. You – you really care. Not just about me, but about everyone. I don’t think…well, I certainly don’t think you get your just due. It certainly seems to me … Who - who comforts you?”

Hilda’s cheeks colored in the fire light, hands stilled in her lap, the darning forgotten. “Zel – Zelds has always been very – well you don’t see it. With the way she is with me at times, but when we’re…when…and she takes care of me in her own way…and I, well…I…”

Mary lifted the tobacco to her lips and watched as Hilda stuttered out her half-hearted answer.

Hilda quieted and regarded her as she was regarding her.

“Would you…might you want to sit. Here?” Mary nodded towards the settee beside herself.

Hilda’s eyes went to the space beside Mary, a fear coming to rest in her eyes. But slowly she began to nod. Gradually at first and then with shaky hands she sat her darning down. Mary turned to tap off the ash of her tobacco, watched as Hilda rose, came towards her. Hilda settled upon the settee, body rigid at first.

Mary smoked.

Their legs touched and Hilda nearly apologized, but Mary’s hand came out to rest against her strong limb. For Mary was not apologizing. Hilda inhaled sharply. Looked to where Mary’s hand was resting against her.

Mary felt out of her depths, for with Zelda, Zelda’s confidence rose where hers lacked. With Hilda – what it was she had witnessed her doing to her sister, was certainly only a byproduct of their times together, their level of comfort together.

But there was some relief when Hilda reached forward, placed her hand over Mary’s atop her leg. Their fingers came to fold together. Mary could see Hilda smiling shyly out of the corner of her eyes. And their bodies relaxed into one another.

Mary smoked again and offered the tobacco to Hilda. This time Hilda did not refuse. This time she took the roll and with practiced ease, she inhaled the smoke into her lungs and leaned back against the settee to exhale a cloud of smoke to the heavens.

Mary watched her, the bare spans of neck exposed from beneath her soft blonde curls. She looked more at ease than Mary had ever seen her. Their hands were warm where they rested together. Mary leaned ever so slightly over, felt emboldened enough to kiss Hilda’s neck.

Hilda giggled, pulled away from Mary. But then their faces were next to one another’s. Hilda’s eyes, filled with mirth, suddenly sobered. Mary looked from her eyes, to her lips.

Hilda’s breathing was deepened.

Mary cupped her cheek.

Hilda smiled. “Hang on, love.” And she stretched over Mary, Mary feeling the heat of her body acutely against her, so unaccustomed to touch was she that it thrilled her when Hilda reached across her body to stub out the tobacco. Their hands not leaving the other’s in the odd shuffle and then Hilda was again beside Mary. And it was Hilda, suddenly emboldened, that cupped Mary’s cheek and leaned forward to press their lips near to one another’s. At first fluttery, uncertain kisses and then Hilda seemed to blossom into the self-assuredness that Mary knew she possessed and there was suddenly much more to the kiss. A certain intensity that flared up as their lips opened to one another.

The fire crackled as they kissed until they rested into one another, Mary wrapping her arms about Hilda, holding her against her as they laid together atop the couch. A certain comfort growing between them in the other’s arms. Mary found she liked this, the simple act of holding Hilda.

The clock in the foyer clicked. Reminding them of time.

Mary felt her chest grow warm, realized that it was faintly glowing in the ever-decreasing light about them.

Hilda turned, as if sensing that the beat of her heart was no longer her own. She sat up and regarded the light, reached out to touch Mary’s chest. A smile came to rest on her sleepy lips.

“She misses you.” Hilda whispered.

Mary caught her hand, brought it to her lips and kissed the palm. “She misses the both of us.” For she knew it, intuitively.

Hilda smiled. “I should…I should go to bed.”

Mary did not wish to part from the warmth that Hilda gave her, but she nodded, watched as the younger Spellman stood from the settee and straightened herself out.

“Don’t stay up too late, love. She certainly won’t be back this evening.” Hilda admonished as if they had not just been canoodling together.

Mary laughed. “I’ll go up to bed soon.”

Hilda smiled, moved to leave, but then came back to Mary, leaned down to press a kiss to her lips. She smiled shyly and then straightened, turning to make her way up the stairs with one last look over her shoulder.

Mary listened to the hush of the house around her. How odd this world was. How very odd.

She lighted another roll of tobacco and laid smoking on the settee, warm all over. She let her hand rest against her ribcage, eyes closing briefly to imagine that it were Zelda touching her, Zelda that laid with her in the quiet night.

When she opened her eyes again to inhale from the tobacco, something caught her attention outside the window and she turned to look, heart suddenly pounding rapidly in her chest.

She was on her feet, standing from the settee, moving to look out the window.

But there was nothing. No sign of anything amiss, nothing out of place. 

The front yard of the Spellman home sat empty and bare under the waning moon light. Not even wind whipped the trees in a cool night breeze. It was still.

She stood smoking at the window. Watching.

The tobacco burned down, very nearly to her flesh, so that she finally gave up and turned to crush it in the dish.

It had been nothing, hadn’t it? Perhaps a bat coming out from slumber, racing by the window. Nothing more.

But she felt unsteady as she made her way up the stairs, as she slipped into her bedroom feeling uneasy.

Laying in the bed, Mary placed a hand over her heart. Warmness overcame her, lulled her to sleep.

* * *

There were kisses on the settee after Sabrina went up to bed the following evening. Little touches here and there, a sort of shy exploration of the other.

But it ended with a gentle kiss and parting as the previous night had. Only somewhat sweatier and more heated than the previous evening so that her body hummed.

Mary had taken to smoking in the parlor and reading. Though her eyes were continuously, distractedly drawn to the window. To the curiosity of what she sensed so near. A presence lingered. Close and warm.

She stood, went to the window and looked out.

Nothing. She sensed and saw nothing.

Wrapping herself in a blanket Hilda had knitted, she moved towards the front door. She eased it open and stepped out onto the front porch. The night was still.

Mary felt the wood of the porch beneath her bare feet as she moved forward, descended quietly down the front steps. The full sky came into view, the stars hovering majestically above her head. She looked to the woods. Searching.

The trees stood firm and strong. The pond stretched out before her. There was silence.

It was in the moment that she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising. A sensation unlike any she had ever witnessed before raced down her spine – almost as if a finger were sliding its way down her back. There was the warmth of breath against her neck. It was so visceral, so real that Mary shook, turned as if expecting to see someone behind her.

But there was nothing. No one.

Mary shook, felt her entire being quaking. Her knees nearly gave out but she lurched forwards, back towards the safety of the house. She was inside in an instant, slamming the front door and falling back against it, breathing heavily.

She felt panic rising in her, a fear overcoming her.

There were footsteps on the stairs and then Hilda appeared in her night things, a worried look in her eyes.

“What – what happened? Mary, love…What…”

Mary shook her head, fear tightening her throat so that she couldn’t speak.

Hilda came to her, wrapped her up in her arms. “It’s alright, love. It’s okay, lamb. You’re safe.”

Mary fell into her embrace, allowed the younger Spellman to guide her to the stairs, to help her to her bedroom. She helped her into her nightgown, placed her in the bed, and magicked a fresh pot of calming tea to the bedside table. Hilda sat on the edge of the bed and helped Mary to place the cup to her lips, assuring her that it would help.

Mary drank the tea, felt her heart working against itself to slow to a normal tempo, felt her senses slowly, delicately relax.

Hilda smiled, patted her cheek. “There, there, love. It was nothing more than your imagination, I’ll bet.”

But it had been so real. So very real.

“Hilda…” Mary gasped, suddenly afraid that she might leave her. “Hilda…would you…”

And Hilda’s eyes went to the other side of the bed. She swallowed, her hand shook a little as she sat down the tea cup. “Y-yes. Of – of course, love.” And she took a deep breath, as if steadying herself before leaning to put out the candles at the side of Mary’s bed. Mary watched her walk around the edge of it in the darkness, felt the bed dip down and then a warm body was beside her.

Their limbs touched in the darkness.

Mary shivered.

Hilda sighed and slowly turned to face her. “It’s alright, love. I’m here.” And she reached out and took Mary’s lithe frame into her strong arms. Holding her close.

Mary relaxed, eased into her embrace.

Her chest glowed, bright in the darkness. Hilda’s hand came to rest over her steadily beating heart. It felt as if Zelda were there with them.

An easy comfort overcame them then and Mary eased into sleep.

* * *

“I wondered, well…” Hilda twisted a rag in her hands, eyes darting to make sure that Sabrina had truly gone up stairs.

Mary felt her heart beating for there was something she recognized in Hilda’s eyes. And she had felt it, too, in the mornings that they had woken up together in her bed.

“Well, I just…might you want to…” Hilda’s eyes went to the floorboards beneath their feet in the kitchen and Mary followed her gaze, realizing just what she was suggesting. “It’s…well, it’s safe…you see. Safeguarded away from Sabrina so she doesn’t…”

And Mary understood in that moment that she had been _allowed_ access. Her presence had been _wanted_. Her skin warmed at the thought, her heart pounding quicker.

She nodded enthusiastically, helped Hilda with the rest of the dishes and then, with butterflies in her chest, she followed Hilda to the door. They descended together into warm darkness. The scent of Zelda rose up to greet them, the candles sparked to life as they walked down further.

The bed rose to greet them at the end of the stairs.

Hilda stood still, gazing upon it. Mary came to stand behind her.

“Well.” Hilda sighed, for they had worked up the courage to get this far.

Mary found that it was easy enough to slip her arms about Hilda’s waist, that the shorter woman leaned against her. She leaned down to press a kiss to Hilda’s neck. She turned Hilda in her arms, leaning down to press their lips together.

The room warmed about them, seemed to shine just a bit brighter, made everything feel just a bit more erotic. It was as if the scent of it acted as an aphrodisiac, for Hilda’s eyes were dilated as she looked up at Mary, Mary’s inhibitions melted away so that she sat Hilda on the edge of the bed and felt herself come to sit before her.

And Hilda’s eyes grew sharper, more focused as Mary’s hands pushed at skirts, removing them from her path so that she might touch those strong thighs that she had touched days before. And Hilda held onto her shoulder, not afraid, nor uncertain anymore.

Mary’s hands grew closer, feeling bolder. And Hilda enchanted something strangled under her breath and Mary found herself naked before Hilda and Hilda naked before her. Hilda with her long, long blonde hair suddenly pouring down over her shoulders and her milky white skin that could rival her sister’s.

And for a brief moment Hilda looked nervous, bit at her lip but Mary marveled at the woman before her. Her breasts were so perfectly round, so perfectly pointed and she reached up and took. She cupped them in her hands, felt the nipples that responded to her. She leaned up on her knees, leaned forward to place one between her lips and kiss it, worship it. Hilda held her close, little moans emitted forth from her as she allowed Mary to kiss her so.

And then Mary sat back, her hands coming to rest on Hilda’s thighs, willing them ever so much apart from one another. There was the scent of her, that was solely Hilda. There was the sight of her. Perfect and pink and so different from her sister. Hilda’s legs came slightly open further, hesitantly and Mary reached forward to take, to touch.

Hilda responded beautifully, Mary feeling her inhibitions falling away and easy into her. Wantonly. And Mary, curious to know, pressed her lips to Hilda’s thigh, kissed forward as Hilda opened to welcome her.

“Oh, love.” Hilda sighed, her fingers tangling into Mary’s hair to hold her close as Mary’s tongue came to taste, to lick, to touch. And her fingers swirled downwards, wanting to be inside, delighting in the way that Hilda responded so easily, so readily to her touches. “Yes, l-love…oh…Zeld…Zelds has taught you w-well…oh, Mary.” Hilda panted against her.

And Mary gave back all that Hilda had given to her. Tenfold. Until Hilda was panting and on her back on the mattress, legs wrapped over Mary’s shoulders and then she was calling out, voice broken and taxed.

Mary sat back, wiped at her lips, feeling emboldened. She moved, weakly, to fall on the bed beside Hilda, wanting to be near to her. And Hilda, breathing deeply, welcomed her in the crook of her arm and they laid together in the pleasantly warm room. Hearts beating steadily in tandem.


	14. Chapter 14

Part 14

The sky had not yet lightened into morning when Mary awoke from a pleasant dream of a lush, verdant garden that had felt so strangely familiar. As if a memory from childhood, a place she had been taken to by the nuns. Yet, it had been so very glorious and gorgeous, so very vivid and bright. Green, green grass and tall, elegant trees that stretched on for infinity, the soothing rush of water falling over rocks.

Something was different about the house around her. She could sense it almost immediately, dragging her back from her gorgeous dream to the confines of the Spellman home.

There was a warm arm draped about her middle. She pressed back into the sumptuous curves of Hilda’s naked body. She was warm, felt soft and inviting against Mary’s back.

A creak, a groan. The house shifted.

Mary startled more awake, aware of something. A presence.

Hilda stirred beside her but did not awaken.

Fear grasped at her. The ghostly sensation down her spine was remembered. And yet…it did not feel the same.

Mary, needing to know, slid from Hilda’s grasp, careful to not wake the lightly snoring woman. Her even, deep breathing assured Mary that she was still asleep as she pulled on her nightgown and reached for her robe.

She slipped out the door with practiced, silent ease.

It was the smell of the crisp Spring morning that first accosted her senses. As if nature had freshly bloomed that very morning inside the house.

She quietly descended the stairs, felt the early morning sun beginning to rise and peek through the windows of the parlor. But it was the scent that floated through to her on the hazy morning air that made her heart beat just a bit faster.

Her feet carried her forwards, picking up speed with each step until she came to the kitchen doorway and found just what she had hoped for.

Zelda.

The light from the window filtered in, the haze of her smoke floating, playing in its rays. Zelda at the table, trouser-clad legs stretched out, white blouse unbuttoned and loose, red hair wind-swept in its bun. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips curled into a smile as she exhaled a cloud of smoke at the sight of Mary.

And Mary went to her, drawn to her. And she wrapped her arms about Zelda, burying her face in her neck, inhaling the familiar scent of her mixed with sweat, tobacco, fire, nature, some distant place...

Zelda’s arm went about her, pressing her lips to her forehead.

Mary fell to her knees before Zelda, contented to be so near to her, to touch her again. It had only been six days and yet it had felt a lifetime.

Zelda’s hand came to run through Mary’s wild hair and she cupped her cheek, leaning down so that they could kiss.

“I’ve missed you.” Zelda whispered as she sat up to inhale from her tobacco. Her fingers stayed at Mary’s cheek, fingers twirling, curling into her hair. Her eyes searched Mary’s.

“Where – why…” Mary’s mouth was dry, the words hardly forming, sentences forgotten as her heart raced pleasantly.

Zelda tapped off her ashes, sighed as if in resignation, perhaps exhaustion. “There are Covens littered throughout the colonies, you see. Not many, but they do exist. We went to Winnsboro. In Carolina. There’s a Coven there and the High Priest and his wife were expecting a child. Their first daughter. Though Winifred is older and it was quite difficult for her.”

Mary, whom had taken to picking at the material of Zelda’s pants, frowned. “Are you…a midwife?”

Zelda chuckled as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. “No. Not quite. Though I did assist in some of the birth.”

Mary’s brow must have creased further, for Zelda’s fingers moved to her forehead, smoothing back the lines.

“Father Blackwood and I were required to attend to some of the Coven’s needs while the birth took place. We helped with the ceremony after. You see, according to witch law the first-born daughter is highly revered.”

To be so cherished for being female sounded lovely. Mary often wondered if she had been born a male if things might have turned out differently for her. If she might have felt…differently. But here, in this house, amongst these non-mortals, it seemed that to be born a female was the higher honor.

Mary felt oddly comforted, uplifted by this thought.

“She was a darling little thing. All six pounds of her.” Zelda smiled at the thought of the baby. “She reminded me of Sabrina when she was first born.”

Mary could imagine that Sabrina had been very darling as a baby.

She let her fingers trail down the side of Zelda’s leg.

Zelda looked at her.

The question burned at the tip of her tongue, but she felt foolish. “Did you and Judge…”

Zelda frowned before realizing. “No. There wasn’t time for that.”

Mary felt a wave of relief flood through her, watched as their hands came to thread together on Zelda’s lap.

Zelda tapped off her ash and captured Mary’s chin in her hand. “And things here …they were alright?” There was concern laced in her features as she asked. As if she knew just what it was that had happened.

“I thought I sensed something while I was away…I thought perhaps that something might have happened.” There was concern laced in her voice, a hint of fear.

Mary rested her head atop Zelda’s lap. “No…nothing…” Her eyes caught on the window and the bright, lightness that permeated and persisted outside. The tops of trees, the forest. The forest. There had been something there. Watching.

Her hand must have tensed against Zelda’s skin that her fingers had sought out beneath her shirt – the warm softness of her skin, the scent of her so near a comfort - for Zelda’s fingers came to run soothing circles over her back. “What was it?”

The sensation of a hand tracing down her spine was remembered. “I don’t know.” Mary whispered. “It was probably nothing…” She no longer trusted herself to know what was real and what was false. She felt foolish now in Zelda’s presence at having feared something that had probably been nothing more than a trick of the mind. “In the woods…one night, I thought I…”

Zelda’s fingers stilled on her back. “Perhaps nothing more than a wolf. They’ve been running rampant around these parts the past few months.”

Mary nodded against her leg, thumb swirling against her back. “Yes…perhaps.” But could a wolf have touched her so gently, almost oddly lovingly?

There were footsteps coming closer. Mary sat up, preparing to move away from Zelda in an instant if it were Sabrina. She looked up to Zelda, watched as her eyes shifted from her to whoever had just come to rest in the doorway, but she kept a firm hand about Mary. A smile creased Zelda’s eyes. “Hilde.”

“Good morning, love.” Hilda’s sing-songy voice was muted in the morning. “How were your travels?” She spoke as she came to stand behind Zelda, her hands moving to her shoulders and Zelda looked up at her.

“A bit long, I’d say. I’m a bit sore.” Zelda admitted, her voice changing , different with Hilda.

“Nothing a nice hot bath won’t cure.” Hilda looked briefly down to Mary, her eyes sparkling. And then Hilda was leaning down and Mary watched as the sister’s lips met. Sweetly, gently, warmly. A homecoming, a welcome. “I’ll put on a pot of tea and start breakfast. Sabrina will be pleased to see you. But I do think you should wash up before you eat. You smell like the road. Mary, love, why don’t you get off the floor and help Zelda with the bath.”

Zelda patted her sister’s hand on her shoulder and looked down to Mary. “Why yes, that does sound like a marvelous idea, doesn’t it, Mary?”

* * *

The water shimmered in the candlelight of the bathing room.

Zelda’s skin was laid bare to Mary, her auburn locks hung loose over her shoulders, pink nipples pert as she lifted the nightgown from over Mary’s head, pressing a kiss against her shoulder once she was stripped bare. Zelda took her hand, led her into the basin. The water was delightfully hot against her skin as she pulled Zelda to her. Their breasts met, lips meeting in a heated kiss. Mary’s hand lifted to brace the back of Zelda’s neck, to rub at the tense muscles there.

Zelda moaned against her lips.

They sank down into the warm waters, Mary coming to rest behind Zelda so that she could ease her tense shoulders. Zelda’s body folded forward over her legs so that Mary could run her hands over her back. “Is this…”

“Marvelous.” Zelda breathed. “Riding always makes me so very tense.”

Mary leaned forward to press a kiss to Zelda’s shoulder. Zelda caught her hands, sat up so that she was leaning back against Mary’s chest. She turned her head, searching for Mary’s lips. They kissed languidly, fingers entwining, grazing against taut nipples in the buoyant water. Zelda sighed, let her head roll back against Mary’s shoulder.

Mary watched as their hands swam together, studied the marvelous spans of Zelda laid out before her. She was home.

Home.

Was this Mary’s home now? Did she belong here?

“Hilde was chipper this morning. I suppose you had a hand in that?” There was a smile in Zelda’s voice.

Mary’s cheeks colored at the insinuation, at the memory of just what it was she had done with Hilda only just the night before! The memory of it was still fresh, made her body come even more to life. “Yes, I - I suppose so.” Mary nodded. The image of the sister’s kissing returning to her memory, more heat arising from the depths.

Zelda lifted Mary’s hand to her lips, kissed her fingers. A finger straightened, slid between Zelda’s lips. Tongue and the gentle bite of teeth. Zelda led their other combined hands to her breast, letting Mary’s hand come to rest against her nipple, flattening her hand over Mary’s trapping her there against her.

And then Zelda released her finger from her mouth, and Mary felt Zelda guiding her hand down. Down beneath the surface of the water, down between her legs. “Oh…I’ve missed you.” Zelda whispered, pressing their hands against herself. She sighed, beautifully.

* * *

It was bliss, to have Zelda back in the Spellman home. To catch her eye mid-day as they brushed past one another, purposefully. To feel Zelda’s hand come to rest against her back when she joined them for lunch. To sit across from her in the parlor and watch her study a thick, leather bound book while smoking mindlessly. Her eyes meeting Mary’s curious glance every now and then. Smiling.

However, it became obvious that Zelda moved stiffly, sorely throughout the day. The journey had been rough on her.

Hilda asked for Mary to take Sabrina off for a walk in the woods so that she could attend to her sister’s aches, a jar of salve in hand. And Mary felt a jealousy ignite within her. For hadn’t her ministrations that morning been enough?

And Mary wanted. She wanted Zelda all to herself.

Hilda’s hand had come to rest on her arm, reassuring her.

And Mary knew that it was only fair to give them this.

She walked through the woods unseeingly. Sabrina darting up ahead and then back again to wrap her arms about Mary and tug her forward.

She forced herself to focus. To focus on the plants and the trees around her. The sound of the creek flowing off in the distance. The light pulsing through the trees. The hum of insects. The wind in the leaves.

But something else. She felt it with each step forward. A heaviness, something unsettling in her chest. A sensation that she could not shake. A feeling of eyes on her.

She looked, searched for the source of this presence. But it was only lush greenery for miles and miles. In all directions.

They walked until they tired and then they returned home. There was a wave of relief that washed over Mary upon seeing its stately structure. A sense of safety rose up to greet her.

Zelda was sitting in the parlor, an ease again returned to her presence.

When Sabrina darted up the stairs to add the rocks she had found to her collection, Zelda pulled Mary in for a gentle kiss.

It was bliss, this.

Bliss to lay with Sabrina sandwiched between them after dinner, as Hilda sat the kitchen straight beneath them, Zelda translating French fairytales until the young girl slipped into sleep. They tucked her in, catching the other’s eye as they did so.

They caught Hilda in the hallway, Mary delighting in the simple good night kiss that Zelda caringly bestowed upon her sister in thanks for smoothing out her strained muscles. And then Hilda and Mary stared awkwardly at the other, as if they had not just spent a week of knowing one another. It was Zelda’s insistent nod that forced Mary to lean forward and kiss Hilda good night.

And Zelda took Mary to bed.

They fell asleep together, Mary delighting in the sumptuous scent of Zelda on her sheets again.

* * *

She dreamt of the forest.

Of a path winding its way forward. Her feet carried her further than she and Sabrina had wondered that day. Forward, forward until a neatly manicured hedge arose on the horizon. An entrance appeared between stiff branches. She stepped forward curiously, entering into a vibrant garden. Unlike any she had seen before. A fountain sprung up in the midst of brightly colored flowers.

She stared at the image, found a man and woman entwined together, their bodies chiseled and strong and naked. And water sprang forth from them.

Mary walked forwards, curious by the statue, by the way these two beings of the opposite sex were not simply comingling, but were standing almost as equals.

She looked, eyes coming to rest upon the handsome face of the man. An image of someone she had once known…so familiar to her.

And then her feet halted their journey as her eyes traveled to the face of the woman.

Her heart pounded wildly in her chest as those hauntingly familiar eyes looked at her. The eyes, the nose, the mouth…they were hers.

Mary shot straight up in bed, eyes coming wide open in the pitch black of night. A gasp escaped from her lips, pulse racing, nerves set on edge. It took a moment for her breathing to calm, to regain a sense of who and what and where she was.

And then she turned, remembering Zelda’s arrival the previous day, and reached for the woman but found the bed empty beside her. A frustrated groan slipped from her lips as her hand came to rest on the mattress.

It was still warm.

Zelda had only just left.

Mary wanted to find her; she wanted to know just where it was she slipped off to in the middle of the night. Her feet hit the cold floor, she reached for her nightgown, her robe and, in the process, she happened to glance out the window.

There was a figure moving through the dim light of the waxing moon. Auburn hair was discernable.

Zelda was heading to the forest.

Mary’s heart pounded in her chest.

She would follow.

She made her well-practiced, quiet escape out the bedroom door and padded swiftly down the stairs. She passed through the front door, moving as quietly as possible in the direction she had seen Zelda moving.

Mary’s eyed adjusted to the night around her. She could make out Zelda’s form in the woods. Deeper now.

She would have to move quickly in order to follow her. She ducked behind trees as she went, careful to not make a sound. She now knew the woods well enough to know the paths she could take with the fewest number of twigs to crunch beneath her feet and alert Zelda to her presence.

Zelda walked, as if a somnambulist. Mary wondered if she were even awake, if she knew where it was she was wandering.

The trees formed into a circle, a clearing appeared, and Mary halted in her tracks.

A hooded figure stood in the midst of the clearing.

Her heart was pounding, loudly, in her chest. Blood racing to her ears.

She darted for the cover of trees, to where she could peer out, watch as Zelda progressed forward to greet the hooded figure. It appeared that whoever it was was not a threat to Zelda, for she moved assuredly, confidently forward. Mary watched as they conversed.

A hand appeared from the robed person, reaching to grab for Zelda and Mary’s blood went cold.

But the hand cupped at Zelda’s cheek, held her gently.

Mary frowned. Who could this be? Certainly not Judge Blackwood, the gesture had been too careful for him.

She needed to know. She wanted to know.

She slipped further forward, wishing to hear just what it was that the hooded figure was telling to Zelda.

Her feet padded deftly forward, careful of every little stick or twig or limb. She moved closer and closer as the hooded figure drew Zelda closer.

The twig snapped loudly beneath her foot.

And then Zelda was turning, was looking directly at her.

Mary’s eyes widened. She froze. And then her instincts kicked in and she tumbled backwards, heart pounding as her feet carried her away. Quickly, swiftly away. Running, she was racing back through the woods, deaf to Zelda’s cries for her to stop.

She ran until an unexpected fallen tree appeared before her and her legs tangled with it and she fell forwards, crashing down to the ground, into the dirt.

“Mary!” Zelda’s voice cried, near to her then. And Mary felt Zelda kneeling beside her, a hand on her back, on her arm. “Are you alright?”

Mary felt tears in her eyes, her whole body shaking. “No.” She whispered and turned to find Zelda but realized the hooded figure was also standing at Zelda’s side.

“She’s hurt.” The voice – that strikingly familiar voice – spoke. The hood was removed, unmasking the figure and Mary screamed.

“Mary, it’s alright. Mary!” Zelda was trying to console her, but Mary shook her head, crawled onto her back and – though her leg was throbbing with pain – she walked her arms backwards, pulling herself away from the both of them.

“Wh-what…wh-who…don’t touch me!” She panted until a lightness overcame her and she slipped into blackness.


	15. Chapter 15

Part 15

Soft, warmness rose to greet her as her eyes blinked open.

A surge of wonderful, fantastic peace, calm, tranquility surged through her being. Her body felt as it had never before. Strong, supple, whole. She could sense that dawn was on the horizon, that soon there would be the real light of day but for now candles flickered about her.

There was a presence she could sense. Multiple presences about her.

It took a moment more for the bodies to come into focus, a second more for her eyes to adjust to her surroundings. It was the blur of red hair that arrested her attention first. A soft, warm hand was pressed against her cheek. The smell of saturated tobacco – as if she’d been smoking nonstop for hours on end – and crushed roses and the forest permeated the touch.

“She’s waking up.” Zelda’s deep voice rasped in the early morning. “Mary, darling, you’re alright.”

Mary blinked, found Zelda’s stormy green eyes looking upon her with such concern, the crease lines in her brow deep.

“What…what happened?” Mary whispered sleepily, concern lacing her voice. She tried to remember, tried to recall just what it was. There was a heavy sensation that settled in her chest. For Zelda’s cheeks – as she looked closer – betrayed tracks of tears.

Zelda’s mouth opened as if to explain, but no words came out. Her eyes shifted, warily, towards the other side of the bed.

“It’s alright, love.” Hilda was there. She whispered and poured steamy tea into a cup, lifting it. “Have a drink of this. You were out in the woods last night. You hurt yourself and I’ve managed to fix you right up. Good as new.” Hilda spoke matter-of-factly as she helped Mary sit up so that she could take her tea. Hilda’s smile did not reach her eyes, Mary noticed as she drank from the cup. Though it was a special calming blend she knew well, it did little to ease her racing mind.

She had been in the woods.

She remembered then the pain in her legs, stumbling over a log. But what had happened? Why had she been running?

She looked back to Zelda who wiped furiously – betraying her embarrassment - at her cheeks. “You’re okay now, Mary. It’s…it’s all alright.” Her lips trembled as she spoke. It felt as if it were not alright.

Mary looked again to Hilda for some sort of reassurance, some understanding.

She felt Zelda stand, watched as she lit up a roll of her tobacco, irritably wiping at her cheeks.

“Mary, love…do you remember what happened?” Hilda gently inquired, taking the tea cup from her. Wiping at her brow with a cool, damp rag.

Mary looked, bewildered, from Hilda to Zelda. She shook her head, closed her eyes, trying hard to recall, to remember what had sat off this strange reaction in both of the sisters. There had been Zelda home the previous day. They had gone to bed. She had awakened from a strange dream…

Ah, yes! She had seen Zelda walking into the woods. And she had followed! And she had seen…

Mary gasped. “Who – who was that in the woods?” Her voice was small, frightened.

She watched as Zelda caught Hilda’s eyes over her head.

Hilda took Mary’s hand between hers, patting it, running her fingers soothingly over her wrinkled skin. But the gesture did not comfort her. It only concerned her further.

“I am afraid, my dear, that the woman in the forest was me.”

Mary startled again at the voice.

She had not seen her there, sitting in the chair by the window. Holding a lily in her hand, stroking the stem between two very, very familiar hands. The face, the voice…it was hers and yet it was not.

Mary’s heart hammered in her chest. She felt herself clamoring backwards, up the bed until she was curled into a ball against the headboard. “Who…who…are you!?” Her voice quivered.

The woman with her face, her twin in every way, placed the lily calmly back in the vase and rose from her chair. She let her hand fall briefly against Zelda’s lower back – Zelda who smoked furiously – and their eyes met and some silent agreement was made. Mary’s eyes lingered where her double had touched Zelda…so very intimately. What was this?

The woman turned towards her again. “Please do not be afraid, Mary.” She stepped forward one more step and Mary backed even further away. Her twin smiled a bit. “Really, darling. I won’t harm you. I believe there are some things I rather need to explain.”

Zelda rubbed at her forehead irritably and looked again at this mystery woman whom she appeared to know quite well. Had she only ever been interested in Mary because she looked so very much like…who was she? What was happening? “Do go easy on her, Lilith. Perhaps she’s not ready to…”

“No.” Mary’s voice was surprisingly firm even as she shook. “No. I need…I _want_ to _know_ what is happening…here…you’ve… _you_ _have_ kept me in the dark. This whole...time…you didn’t…” Mary was pointing at Zelda but her finger shook.

Zelda looked stricken. Tears formed again in her eyes. Her head shook from side to side. “I only ever wanted to protect you.” Zelda whispered.

Tears pricked at the sight of Zelda’s, and yet they were not sympathetic tears. No, she was angry. Very angry and very frightened.

“No more lies!” Mary gritted out through her teeth. “No more.” She pulled herself away from Hilda who was trying to reach for her. Had she only ever been a sad replacement for whoever this _Lilith_ woman was?

She looked at the stately being who held herself tall, proud, confident. She was Mary and yet she was not at all. There was something in her presence that emitted ease and comfort in who she was, an ease that Mary had never felt before in her life.

“Who are you?” Mary demanded again.

Zelda wiped at her eyes with great distain for her tears. “Perhaps I should…”

“No.” Mary’s voice was even now. “I don’t want to hear it from you.” She turned to Hilda. “Nor you.”

Zelda blanched at her words. Hilda slid calmly from the bed.

Zelda wiped at another tear and squared her shoulders, tilted her chin up, as if arming herself. “Well then…we’ll be downstairs.” And she turned in a flourish of tobacco smoke and upset and practically dragged Hilda from the room.

The stranger remained. Standing in the middle of the room.

Her equal in every regard and yet they were not equal, were they?

The woman offered her a gentle smile. “You should not be so hard on her. She has loved you for a very long time.”

Mary’s brow furrowed at this. It all did not make sense, nothing added up. She had only known Zelda for a short while. How could she have possibly loved her… _love_? “What are you talking about? Who are you?” Mary demanded. She was so tired of not knowing. So very tired and this woman, her double, looked as if she knew things…looked as if she would tell her…help her fill in the missing pieces.

“I am Lilith.”

Lilith. Lilith…it was a name she had heard before. Some remembrance from something she had once read. A name not commonly used lest it offend, lest it curse its owner. Lilith.

Lilith glanced at the bed, looking as if she might like to sit on its edge, but then rethought this for Mary was still balled up in fear and anger. So, she took the chair from near the window, moved it forward ever so much and sat down.

Mary could tell that they were in for a long conversation now. A sensation came over her in this woman’s presence. It felt as if they had a thousand things to say to one another and yet there was also some sort of companionable ease to her existence. She looked as if she could be trusted, as if she understood Mary.

“Why do we look the same?” Mary asked, knowing that if she asked she would be given an honest answer. She trusted this knowledge.

Lilith smiled at this. “We are one and the same, you and I. Both cut from the same cloth, I’m afraid.”

Mary shook her head. “But I…I was an only child. I have no family…how do you…”

Lilith nodded. “You are the part of me that inhabits this world.”

Mary’s brow creased.

Lilith took a deep breath, her eyes shining with something akin to adoration. “I want to tell you everything, Mary.”

Mary felt tears freshly come from her eyes. “Then tell me! Please.”

Lilith nodded, looked as if she wanted to come to Mary, looked as if she wanted to take her up into her arms. But she did not. She sat forward in her chair, let her elbows rest on her thighs. “It’s a very long story. Shall we begin at the beginning? Yes…of course…well, I suspect you are familiar with the story of Adam and Eve.”

“In the Garden of Eden…yes, of course.” Mary had no idea what this would have to do with anything. Lest of all her own life. She looked briefly at her hands, as if expecting them to somehow be different.

“Only it was not Adam and Eve as the Christian world wishes to teach. No, it was Adam and Lilith who appeared first. They were cared for and loved by the creator herself. Raised as equals in everything. They ran through the forests and they ate of the fruit of the earth and they were blissfully happy. So very happy and they learned and they had knowledge.”

It sounded like a fairytale. What did it have to do with _Mary’s_ life? Her dreary, terrible life of being miserable, alone? She had had a sister this whole time and she…

“But all of that changed, you see. When another entity came. A masculine force that overtook the creator. And he wanted Adam and Lilith to multiply. He was not happy with how they had come to know the earth, how they had learned. He wanted more and so he took Adam and he broke a rib from him and created Eve. Adam’s perfect other half. She was glorious. So very beautiful and meek, mild with Adam’s dark, gorgeous good looks.”

Mary’s body slowly unfurled as she listened, enchanted. Confused, yet enthralled. For what did this have to do with anything?

“Lilith found herself drawn to Eve. She wished to protect her, to care for her. Adam felt…differently. He saw Eve as lesser than him and he wanted to possess her. Lilith could only protect Eve for so long. She stole her away through the forest and they hid together in a cave and they loved one another.” Lilith eyed Mary. “You understand…they loved one another.”

Mary nodded. Knowing more than anything what it was Lilith spoke of.

“The entity who had overcome the creator was unhappy with this. Adam was very upset by this and the two of them found the women. They drug them from their hiding place and Eve was returned to Adam and Lilith was punished…”

Mary’s mind raced at this, a deep fear and panic and knowing welling up inside of her. A flash of a forest, of heavy, torrential rains, of protective arms, of nakedness. She shook her head, the memories feeling so very, very faraway yet very familiar. Mary’s eyes flashed wide, looking at this creature before her. “You…you are Lilith? From the Garden?”

Lilith nodded, stood from her chair. She moved to stand before the window, the sun beginning its ascent upwards so that the purple morning was reflected in her visage. Mary remembered, then. In childhood. All the dreams she had had of finding herself, of holding herself when things at the orphanage had been too chaotic, too stressful. She had always been able to come back to herself, to rest in her own embrace. But…those had not been her arms at all, had they?

Lilith rubbed at her forehead.

“How were you…how did he punish you?” Mary swallowed, knowing.

“The male entity broke a rib from my side and created my equal.” Lilith spoke wistfully out to the morning before her eyes lowered. “Another woman.”

Mary’s mouth was dry.

Lilith turned to her, to look at her.

“Me.” Mary’s voice was no more than a hoarse whisper, her throat tight with fear.

Lilith nodded. “My darling, darling Mary.” And she came towards her, looked as if she wanted to embrace her but Mary flinched and she stopped herself. Her hands covered her face, rubbing as if in frustration.

Mary shook her head. “But why…why don’t I remember?”

Lilith sighed, crossed her arms over her chest. “It was by grand design. Since I could not reproduce with you, the entity forced me from the Garden, deemed me useless. We traveled through the forest together for days and days until we met Lucifer Morningstar. A fallen angel from the heavens. He took us in, he protected us. But the further you got from Eden, the sicker you became. Lucifer and I worked hard to nurse you back to health, but we realized that a curse had been placed upon us.” Tears welled in Lilith’s eyes and she turned from Mary.

Mary dared to reach out to grasp at Lilith’s hand before she could move away from her. Lilith gasped at the contact. Their skin warmed together, a strong sensation raced through Mary and she knew it was reciprocated in Lilith’s being. A warmth, a homecoming like she had never known overcame her.

“Oh.” Lilith sat on the edge of the bed, taking Mary’s hand between her own.

“What happened?” Mary needed to know, for the images of what it was Lilith spoke of appeared in her mind as clear as if they were happening before her eyes that very minute. There was a cave, a man she remembered who had kindly eyes.

“It seems that the entity of the heavens cursed me to never have you at my side. Lucifer took you away from me and you grew strong again.” Lilith only lifted her hand from Mary’s to wipe at an errant tear. “I knew that you would have to exist away from me and so Lucifer watched over you, watched as you grew but we realized that you were not immortal as we were.” Lilith ran her fingers over Mary’s skin, entranced by her. “The first time…the first time it felt as if my soul were being ripped from my body. It hurt so terribly. Lucifer thought it best if I didn’t see, if I stayed away. He thought it might make you better but…” Lilith shook her head.

“I’ve died?” Mary’s eyes grew large.

Lilith nodded sadly. “Many, many times before. And it never gets easier. For either of us.”

Mary felt tears clinging in her eyes, the realization of her own mortality flashing in her mind.

A thought struck her, however. “But…if I died, how did I…”

Lilith looked to her, a slight smile formed on her lips as she reached out to cup Mary’s cheeks. “I was inconsolable and grew weaker without you. Lucifer offered to help me conceive. I bore you again, created in a perfect likeness.”

Mary’s eyes grew wide at this. “You…”

Lilith nodded. “The first time I held you in my arms I thought it would be different. That I could raise you and care for you forever but you grew weak again. Lucifer took you away to be raised by a mortal family. It was not until you were very old that I was able to come to you. I watched from afar all those years but I could not…and so finally when there was nothing left I sat with you until…” Lilith sniffed. “You see, it’s hard for us to exist together. Once we’re united it’s…it’s only a matter of time.”

Mary’s chest stiffened at this, tightened in a ferocious fear. “But I’m perfectly healthy, I’m completely well…I…I’m not about…”

Lilith let a soothing hand pass over Mary’s cheek. “Yes, you are for now, but now that you know of me…”

Mary felt a strange pain twist in her chest. Was that? But no…

Lilith, knowing, placed her hand against Mary’s breast. “It won’t happen suddenly, I have learned. We have time.”

The sun was illuminating the room, illuminating the darkness of night. It brought with it a strange knowing that Mary was not sure she wanted to know. She both wanted to take Lilith into her arms and yet run far, far away.

Lilith looked down upon her, their identical eyes examining the other’s. “Oh, darling. We have some time.” And she leaned down and kissed Mary’s forehead. “Oh, Mary. I wish you could know how loved you have been for so long. I wish…”


	16. Chapter 16

Part 16

Her body felt more alive than she had ever remembered it feeling before. If she were to die now she wondered if it would come quickly and swiftly.

She examined her hand, clasped delicately in Lilith’s. The veins were present as they had been for the latter portion of her life, they had not changed nor altered. The color of her skin was the same as it always was. Her body felt whole and strong, the same as it always did.

Death. Death did not seem on the horizon for her at all.

If anything, she felt a surge of life pulsing between herself and Lilith. As if her body recalled what it was to be born of her.

Her brow furrowed at the thought of it. Had she really come from this woman who looked like her twin, her equal?

Lilith said that Mary had lived before. Yet, there were no memories of this, no remembrances of things prior to the dreary existence of her current life. She tried to stretch her mind back, attempting to know, to see, but it was only hazy memories of childhood, of the orphanage, of feeling abandoned and lost. There had never been a Lilith nor a Lucifer. There had never been a Zelda, nor a Hilda before either.

These were all a new cast of characters in her life. She had lived for fifty years in this body and this body alone and she had aged alone and had carried on a life alone.

“Why?” Mary felt fresh tears stinging at her eyes. “Why would you have left me to suffer like this then?” She almost refused to believe what it was Lilith had told her. For it was too far-fetched, too outside the realm of possibility.

The world around them moved forward in linear time. Point A to point B. From birth to death. There was nothing more and nothing less.

Lilith’s brow furrowed at Mary’s question, pain swam in her eyes. “I didn’t want you to suffer. But you…you were always so very sensitive, so very _attached_ and so you…” Lilith paused, bit her lip.

Mary rubbed at her cheek irritably, confusion lacing her brow.

Lilith reached out to wipe tenderly at Mary’s tears. “It was you who asked us to put you somewhere that you could remain anonymous and free from a family.”

Mary’s brow creased at this. “ _I_ asked to be treated so…so cruelly? Unjustly? Forgotten and abandoned? Why…why would I have _asked_ for this? No…no, that can’t be.”

“Mary,” Lilith steadied her, took her shoulders in her hands, forcing her to look at her. “Don’t you see that you have lived and died so very many times and when you go through this cycle you leave behind people who love you. It became painful, to not only them but to you, as well.”

And then Mary knew. Could sense it in the familiarity she had felt, the images she had seen, the knowledge she had possessed. She met Lilith’s eyes, her own widening. “Zelda…”

Lilith’s head nodded in acquiescence. “Yes.” Lilith’s fingers tangled into Mary’s hair, holding her close.

“Has she always…”

“No. Zelda has not lived as long as we have. She was born in the fourteenth century to a very prominent witching family. She showed great aptitude for leadership, her witching abilities unparalleled even by her older brother, Edward. You see Lucifer and I must have priests that attend to matters of this mortal plane. We have had many worthy celebrants though I must say that Zelda has served most faithfully since her inception.”

Mary’s eyes went wide. “Zelda…Zelda is a High Priestess?”

Lilith nodded proudly. “She is one of the most renowned of the high priestesses who serve me. Her knowledge and skill are sought out by many. She serves me very admirably and with great care.” Lilith was very pleased by Zelda and Mary felt her chest warm at these words. As if she, too, were proud of knowing her. “And when she met you for the first time…” Lilith smiled and let the back of her hand rest against Mary’s cheek. “Oh, she was smitten beyond measure. And you were taken with her, as anyone would be.” Lilith’s lips twitched upwards, knowingly.

“How…how many times?”

The smile fell from Lilith’s eyes. “Five, perhaps six lifetimes. And each time she would be at your bedside until the end and you would feel her agony. But she would stay strong until you regenerated, she would keep her eyes on you as you grew, helped you as she could but it became so painful for the both of you. And Hilda as well. She has always been quite devoted to you…”

Mary’s eyes filled with tears at this. To have loved someone so intensely and then to have to watch them die… Her arms ached for Zelda, for Hilda. “But why, then, would I have asked to be separated? Why…why this time….?”

Lilith was stroking her arm, soothing her, was just about to answer her question when the doorknob twisted. And in bounded Sabrina, a ball of energy in the morning light. Her blonde hair was set ablaze by the rising sun.

“Auntie Lilith!” Sabrina raced to the woman who sat atop the bed, clamoring towards the both of them.

“My darling Sabrina!” Lilith wrapped the girl up in her arms and pressed a big kiss to her forehead. And Mary watched on, enthralled by this display of affection for the girl, the very maternal way in which Lilith handled the young Sabrina. They seemed so very familiar with one another. How lucky Sabrina was to be surrounded so effortlessly by all of these women who cared so deeply for her.

“Why are you here?” Sabrina asked excitedly, settling on the bed between Lilith and Mary. And then she looked from Lilith to Mary and noticed the tears upon the latter’s face. “What’s wrong?” Sabrina sat forward, wiped her hand against Mary’s cheek and a warmth raced through her body at the touch.

“Mary has had a very long night. She was hurt in the woods.” Lilith explained for Mary. And Mary knew that Sabrina was not knowledgeable of all that was transpiring around her. She was innocent to this cycle of life and then death and then life again.

“Did Auntie Hilda help you?” Sabrina asked, her fingers pressing so lovingly against Mary’s cheek, tangling in her hair just as her Auntie Zelda had done to Mary a day before. And Mary’s chest warmed at this touch, thrilled at it.

Mary’s eyes filled with more tears, unable to make it stop for these people _cared_ for her. “Yes.” She nodded, took the young girl’s hand in her own, kissed the palm. “Yes, she made me all better.”

Sabrina smiled at this, cuddled into Mary’s side as she had done so many times before and looked from Mary to Lilith. “I knew you looked the same.”

Lilith smiled at this, winked at Mary. “Yes, we do. Don’t we?”

Sabrina looked between them yet again. “Has something happened?”

Lilith shook her head. “No, darling. Everything is alright. But perhaps you might like to go help Auntie Hilde with breakfast. Mary and I have some more things to discuss.”

Sabrina reluctantly pulled herself away from Mary’s arms. “Okay.” She sadly hung her head at this abrupt dismissal.

Lilith caught Sabrina’s chin, tilted her face up to meet her eyes. “We’ll join you soon. And Sabrina, darling, make sure to give your Auntie Zelda a big hug.”

Sabrina’s brow curled at this. “Did something happen to her, too?”

Lilith kissed Sabrina’s forehead. “No, no darling. Now, go on.”

And Sabrina turned before she parted to wrap Mary up in her arms again and then hugged Lilith and then turned to skip out of the room.

Mary bit her lip in thought as she watched Sabrina go.

Lilith turned back to her, reached for her hand again. The touch evoked something, some memory of a heated discussion, candles flickering. “It’s Sabrina, isn’t it?”

Lilith smiled sadly. “Yes.”

“What is it about her?” Mary tried to puzzle it out. Strange bits of information returning to her mind as she began to remember it all. It came to her then, the fact that Sabrina was a half-mortal. “Her father was Edward?”

“Yes, Edward was the High Priest who served Lucifer. He was highly regarded, like his sister.”

And there was a remembrance, something in her mind that was evoked by the images on the walls of the three siblings. A warmth wormed itself through Mary. As if she remembered him, as if she knew him fondly…

“But her mother…her mother was a mortal?”

“Yes. Her mother, Diana, was a mortal woman who was not afraid of the witching world. She fell in love with Edward after she was saved from being accused of witchcraft. Edward saved her from the gallows. Their love produced Sabrina.”

“But how does that help us…?” Mary could not seem to piece it together.

Lilith looked down at their combined hands, worried her lip. “We had _hoped_ that before you knew of me she would turn sixteen in order to have her Dark Baptism, to fully accept her witching abilities. Since she is a half-mortal and half-witch, her existence would act like an antidote to your system’s mortal tendencies. By claiming her full powers, she would ultimately save you.”

Mary’s eyes widened at this strange, unconventional approach. “That doesn’t…why would that…”

“It was something that you discovered in your previous lifetime. We discussed how it might work, how we could ensure that it happened. Both Zelda and Hilda wished to offer themselves to serve this cause but it did not work out. And, unfortunately, it turned out that Zelda was barren and could not produce life. She was very devastated, as you can imagine.”

“Oh, Zelda…” Mary felt a fresh wash of tears threatening to fall again.

“It was your wish that you remain away in your next lifetime until an antidote was created. When we met Diana we all fell for her and she delivered Sabrina to us.”

“But, what happened to Edward and Diana?” Mary asked.

Lilith squeezed Mary’s hand. “It was a very unfortunate accident. Edward had to return to Rome shortly after Sabrina was born. Our Anti-pope serves from Rome, just like the Catholic Pope, you see. Edward was called upon to attend to the then Anti-pope who was not thrilled with this union between a mortal and a warlock. There was a terrible storm at sea and their ship was tragically never heard from again…”

A tear slid from her cheek. “And they…they loved their brother as they…”

Lilith nodded. “Yes. They worshiped and adored him.”

Mary grasped at Lilith’s hand, so very warm in her clasp. It was so much to take in, so much to know. And yet more questions came to her mind. A need to know...a need to understand everything from the beginning, to remember. Her mind did not allow her to remember and yet there was a knowing that had been awoken, that lived deep in her bones.

“She cannot save me until she turns sixteen.” Mary gasped.

Lilith met her eyes levelly and Mary knew that it was true.

Her chest welled up with pain and fear and Lilith moved forward, wrapped her up in her arms.

Mary longed for Zelda.

Mary wiped at her face. One question still lingered in the back of her mind.

“Why…why didn’t they just let me die, then? When I was accused of those horrible things? And what…what does Judge Blackwood have to do with this? Why is he always working with Zelda…I don’t…”

Lilith nodded. “You must understand that witches must cover their tracks around these parts, especially. The puritans want a show. If they don’t understand something, they attribute it to witchcraft. They’ve heard rumors, they think they know, but they… Well, in order to protect ourselves we had to stage these public executions.”

Mary’s eyes widened. “But…they were not _staged_! They were real. I’ve…I’ve seen it happen!”

“It was all a show, darling. No one has ever been harmed. We take the women who are accused and move them to other places. We save them and make sure that they are safe and cared for. It satisfies the mortals, it keeps us safe.”

“But how did I…”

“You were accidentally involved and no one knew what to do at first. You see, Judge Blackwood, as you know him, was appointed as the High Priest after Edward’s death. He and Zelda work together. They fought behind the scenes, for Zelda did not wish to see you die without joining with you in this lifetime and Faustus saw things differently. He knew you would come back again, but we were so close…Sabrina’s sixteenth birthday is only five years away…hardly any time at all in the witching world, and we had wanted to keep you alive until then. So, Zelda bribed Faustus to change his position. None of this would have happened if the town’s people had not gotten involved. Those imbeciles who find anything out of the norm despicable.” Lilith sighed. “And besides we didn’t want you to have suffered through this lifetime in vain.”

Mary listened, processing all that she had just learned. It had all been a strange fluke then. And it would have been natural for Sabrina to have bonded to her so easily, to become like a daughter to her. For they were, in a way, joined metaphysically. Sabrina had taken to her just as she had taken to Sabrina.

“I had hoped to stay out of the picture until she reached her dark baptism…I had really hoped…oh, Mary.” Lilith lifted her hand and kissed it.

Mary bit her lip. “How will it happen?”

Lilith shook her head. “We won’t know. But Hilda’s herbalism is very strong. We will try to fight this because we all want you to live.”

Mary could not believe it. If what Lilith was telling her were true then she had always had a home. She had always been loved. She had never been alone as she had thought…These women loved her.

And she needed to see Zelda, she needed to be with Zelda now more than ever.

“She returned to her room. I’ll go down to be with Sabrina and Hilda.” Lilith spoke as she brushed Mary’s hair from her cheeks. Reading her mind.

Mary nodded, felt unsteady on her legs when Lilith helped her from the bed. Her body was loose. She felt a bit as if she were floating. Her tears had emptied her, Lilith’s words had elated and horrified her. She no longer knew what was real and what was unreal. But was anything real?

She parted from Lilith in the hallway and moved towards the doorway at the end of the hall. She had never before entered into this bedroom. She smelled the smoke before her hand could come to rest on the doorknob. She braced herself for what she might find behind the door. But when she tried to turn the knob, it did not budge.

Zelda had locked herself inside the room.

“Zelda…Zelda, let me in.” Mary whispered, begged.

There was no response.

Mary tried the knob again but it stayed stubbornly locked.

“Zelda, please!” Mary shook the knob a bit harder. And when Zelda did not respond to her again she felt a strange power surge through her and with one rough twist of her wrist the knob slipped opened and the door fell open.

The curtains were drawn. The room was dark. Zelda was curled up in one of two twin beds smoking with a flask in her hands. She looked bewildered that Mary had been able to enter, to see her like this.

“Zelda…” Mary sighed, felt tears come to her eyes yet again at the sad sight of this woman who had loved her so much for so very long, who was broken now before her.

“I…please…don’t…” Zelda was at a loss for words. She wiped messily at her face, drank back more of the liquor that Mary knew to be in the flask.

Mary closed the door, moved into the smoky room. She took the tobacco from Zelda, pried the flask from her hands and climbed into her arms, wrapping her up tightly in her embrace.

Zelda’s body stayed rigid against her.

Mary held tighter.

And then she felt Zelda’s whole body shudder beneath her. A gasp of air, a helpless cry. And then Zelda’s arms were wrapping tightly about Mary’s body, clinging to her as overwhelming sadness overcame her. “We…were…so close…”


	17. Chapter 17

Part 17

It was not until Zelda had laid still in her arms for some time, silence floating around them in the light that escaped through the cracks of the blinds, that Mary shifted, found that Zelda was looking up at her when she peered down.

Zelda’s blood-shot eyes came into focus. The two looked at one another until Zelda pushed lightly at Mary and shifted into a seated position. She reached for her tobacco, brushing her untamed hair from her eyes. Mary watched her as she lighted the paper, listened as it burned and crackled in the muffled silence about them.

Mary let her fingers trail down Zelda’s thigh, over her knee, her shin.

“I suppose,” Zelda sniffed, “that you deserve to know.”

Mary took a deep breath, realization dawning. “I already know.”

Zelda’s hand reached out; fingers trailed over Mary’s cheek.

A remembrance. Days spent hidden away. Secret conversations. Touching. Intimacy.

She had always found Zelda.

She had been very old when Zelda had been very young.

She had stood beside Lilith at the farmhouse in the midst of the wide, rolling expanse of land to meet the young Edward, born of the Spellmans whose lineage of High Priests and Priestesses were innumerable and long. In those days, Lilith had taken to coming for her when she was old, and they would spend their days splendidly together until the curse overcame her. Mary would travel with Lilith, helping her to conduct witch business.

They had gone to meet Edward who was destined to serve Lucifer, but it had been the small little knobby kneed, bright-eyed Zelda Phiona Spellman – who had let Mary know _pointedly_ that that was her full name - who had arrested Mary’s attention.

Zelda had been full of life. Sharp in her every observance, in her deep knowledge of the world and how it worked around her and she had been taken by Mary, even in her old age.

Mary had grown too weak to travel any further so that she had had to stay with the Spellmans who understood this soul connection that existed between their beloved Lilith and her other half. They gave Mary a comfortable place to rest and it was Zelda who sneaked into her room night after night, to climb into the bed with her – as Sabrina had, Mary then realized. Zelda would read to Mary from the _Unholy Bible_ , her strawberry blonde hair brushing against Mary’s weathered skin as she did so.

Zelda’s pink little lips had kissed Mary’s wrinkled cheek as those curious green eyes had stared into Mary’s brilliant blues.

She’d felt the girl’s tears falling against her face as her body slipped from consciousness.

It was at school that she met her again. Mary was placed in the witching academy even though her lineage was questionable. It was Hilda whom she took up with, Hilda who filled her days with playful, imaginative, childish banter. They were both of them studious and unpopular, so they stuck together, staying out of the way of the others.

They formed a close bond – sneaking to one another’s rooms in the night. Bodies pressed tightly against one another as they read the dirtiest poems they could find. Mary’s fingers would tangle in Hilda’s soft blonde locks, envious of how smooth and fine her hair was. And one night Hilda had looked at her over the top of a racy poem and her eyes had slid from Mary’s eyes to Mary’s lips and Mary had cupped Hilda’s cheek – like how they’d read in the poems – and she’d kissed Hilda.

They kissed and touched and explored until…

Zelda Spellman.

Their first encounter did not betray that Zelda had ever met Mary in a previous lifetime.

Zelda had grown into a strong, formidable young woman. She carried herself with dashing confidence, untouchable to those around her, a bit cold to those who did not know her. She demanded the room’s attention anytime she entered.

Mary knew of her from affair – would often find herself staring at her curiously, as if she knew her. But Zelda never paid her any mind. She seemed absorbed with her studies, smoking, and the dashingly handsome Faustus Blackwood.

The first time Mary saw Zelda up close was the night that Zelda arrived disordered and upset in Hilda’s room. It was late, far later than anyone should be out at the school. Zelda smelled of tobacco and faintly of something earthier, the way that Mary’s hand was scented when it came away from Hilda.

Tears stung at Zelda’s eyes, but she was instantly mortified when she found that her sister was not alone.

Mary had sat up in the bed, grasping the sheets guiltily up to her chin as Hilda got up to reach for her sister before she could run away.

“What’s happened, love?” Hilda tried to console her sister but Zelda kept looking at Mary, as if scared stiff to utter any admission of weakness. “Mary won’t say anything, Zelds.”

But Zelda’s fearful look morphed into something of confusion, fascination, as if she had just placed Mary. “It’s so odd, yet I feel…” Her tears were, for a second, forgotten.

And Mary felt it too. But she left Hilda to console her sister, slipping out into the cold chilly night.

It was some nights later that she heard the patter of rocks against her windowpanes. It was sometime in the early morning and the noise roused her from sleep. 

When she’d pulled back the curtain, she’d found Zelda standing, breathing fire, in the garden below. Zelda met her gaze and with one look had beckoned her down to her. Mary had slipped into her robe and shoes and had raced, heart pounding, to meet Zelda. She was almost afraid that she would disappear if she didn’t go fast enough.

But Zelda was there, waiting. She took Mary by the hand and led her to the forest. 

They sat on a rock and watched the sun rise together. Though it was Zelda whom Mary watched more intently than the budding light on the horizon.

After the fourth time they sneaked out like this, Zelda kissed Mary almost shyly.

Mary frowned up at her. “What did you mean that night…what is it about me?”

Zelda shook her head. “I feel as if I’ve known you for a very long time…I can’t…”

Mary bit her lip. For Zelda in the morning light of dawn was a very different person than Zelda at school amongst the others. This Zelda was softer, but no less mysterious.

“What about Faustus…” Mary shoved her boot into the dirt.

Zelda laughed. “That’s just what our parents would like…I’ve never really…” Zelda looked upon Mary’s face, as if lost in her Cerulean eyes.

Zelda took to crashing Mary and Hilda’s slumber parties. And the older girl would share her advanced knowledge and bring them roaring to their edges.

And Mary found herself besotted with the sisters.

After the Academy, they moved to a remote cottage off in the woods and they loved one another in privacy.

Until Zelda began to sneak away in the night. Until Zelda was gone for days. Until Zelda could not talk to Mary about things as they had once been able to.

And Mary begged to know what was happening from Hilda, but Hilda could not say what was happening with their Zelda.

So Mary followed Zelda to the city and it was within the city walls at a bacchanal of sorts that Mary saw _herself_ with Zelda. Watched as her own body pleasured and took from Zelda in the most sacred of ways until she felt tears flowing from her eyes because she did not understand.

And then her double looked up and stared directly at her through the hazy crowd. A knowing, a familiarity acknowledged. Their eyes had locked, and Mary seemed to know, to sense…

Zelda sat at Lilith’s side in tears as Lilith explained what would happen next.

It was surrounded by the three of them in the cottage in the woods that Mary died.

It was Hilda who raised Mary in an attempt to keep her near to them next.

Zelda acted the cold, austere, disinterested aunt.

It was only on a very rare occasion when Mary would happen to catch a glimpse of her Auntie standing in a doorway smoking, watching Mary intently. Watching her with a protective, possessive glint in her eye. It was only in these moments when Mary felt that her Aunt saw her. 

Aunt Zelda watched from a distance as Mary grew. Zelda was often away on important coven business which Mary did not understand until much later. It had always been to protect her, never to harm her.

Hilda was a cheerful, warm mother to Mary, teaching her all the requisite kitchen witch skills she could ever need to know from a very young age. Mary was a brilliant child but rather unhappy, knowing that neither Hilde, nor Auntie Zelda, were her real mothers.

And Aunt Zelda seemed, always, to also be displeased by this.

Or so Mary had assumed. Until her dark baptism at sixteen when her Aunt Zelda had looked Mary up and down in her soaked baptismal gown. Mary’s eyes had widened at just what it was she saw in Aunt Zelda’s eyes. A longing, a hunger.

It felt natural then, some nights later, when Mary had padded quietly down the hallway and pushed open the door to her Aunt’s room.

Zelda had been laying on her back, blowing smoke rings to the rafters. She did not protest when Mary climbed up into the bed beside her.

They lay side-by-side. Not touching.

Aunt Zelda shifted, leaning over Mary in order to crush out her tobacco and Mary’s hands found Zelda’s face as if it were completely natural. Zelda’s eyes closed, she shook her head, slid from Mary’s touch. “Not yet…not yet.” But she let Mary hold her that night.

Mary graduated from the Academy with top marks. She returned to the Spellman home to help Zelda and Faustus run the coven.

It was her third night back from school when Zelda had come to her. Slipping into her room. Smelling of her tobacco and vanilla and lavender. She slid into the bed beside Mary wordlessly, had pulled her close to her body, had tilted her head back to ravish her with kisses that had been withheld, kisses that had been repressed.

But in the light of day Zelda hardened again.

Zelda tried to protect Mary but it was only a matter of time…

Mary stumbled upon Zelda sharing a drink with a beautiful, dark stranger. Who looked just like her.

“Don’t do this to her again!” Mary had cried. “We have to find a better way…”

For Zelda was in tears again, not knowing how to process this, how to handle loving Mary yet having to watch her die again and again. 

Mary did not know of witches nor the Spellmans nor any sort of witchcraft when she was born again. She had lived a quiet life, raised by a physician and his wife who had been unable to produce an heir of their own. They had taken to Mary as a baby, had instantly known she would be theirs. They summered in their country estate and lived the rest of the year near to the city. Her adopted father was a well-respected physician. He was a healer who dealt in the realms of the occult and Mary grew up around the tinges of magic, never fully grasping it or being allowed too near to it as she had been in her previous lives. 

There were always midnight guests who seemed to materialize out of thin air.

Mary, fascinated by the human body and what it was her father did, always sneaked down to his examination room to peer about the corner and watch as the guests came and went. She liked to see just what it was her father would mix together in order to remedy his night patients. These patients were always so different, they seemed to glow just a bit brighter than the regular customs who came throughout the day. Mary could feel an energetic vibration that radiated off of them, warmed her and made her feel whole.

There was a storm the night she saw _her_ first.

Peering down from her hiding spot atop the stairs, Mary watched as a blonde woman came into view, supporting some fragile looking creature on her arm.

“We were sent here by Lilith…” The shorter blonde woman spoke quietly and looked worriedly to the still hooded figure that grasped onto her arm.

Lilith. The name seemed so familiar. 

There was a groan of pain and then the woman on the blonde’s arm collapsed against her, head falling backwards, hood slipping away to reveal a glorious face and soft, auburn curls.

Mary’s eyes widened at the sight of the beautiful woman. She pressed herself harder against the wall of her hiding spot. For she knew that face. Somehow…she knew both of these women…and yet she had seen neither of them before that evening.

Once her father had cordially taken the women into his examination room, Mary crept down the stairs, needing…wanting to know what was happening.

She peered into the little crack in the door that she had discovered years ago. She watched as her father placed the red-headed woman into stirrups and had her shift down towards him. Mary’s eyes widened, for her was looking at her private area.

The woman atop the table was whimpering in pain for her father had given her some leather to bite on.

Her father emerged from between the woman’s legs with blood coating his arms. And it was in that moment that he caught sight of Mary’s peeping eye in the door.

The look in his eyes implored her to leave, for this was not something for Mary to see.

Mary felt faint. She did not return to her room that evening but took up on the couch in the parlor. Listening as the cries grew more intense and then by dawn had receded into nothing.

In the early light of dawn, she heard the examination room door opening. She sat up, expectantly, on the couch and found her father tiredly slipping out.

She had to know, needed to know if the beautiful woman was alright.

She raced to her father and he looked at her as if he knew that she had been waiting up all night. And a small, side smile tugged at his lips. “She lost a child, darling.” For he had never lied to her and would not keep matters of life and death from her.

She peered over his shoulder and glimpsed through the thin crack in the door, the image of the blonde woman standing sadly over the red head, stroking her hair and whispering sweet things to her. As Mary stood watching, the blonde woman happened to glance up, to look her straight in the eyes. And there was a momentary pause, the blonde’s eyes widened in surprise.

Her father closed the door firmly, shutting Mary off from the women inside.

The redheaded woman remained in the care of her father, placed in a room at the end of the hallway. It turned out that the blonde woman was her sister and her name was Hilda. Hilda was very kind but stared at Mary with a mix of admiration and fear.

Mary longed to see the woman in the room, to know her. She would ask Hilda questions about her when they dined at the table at night. Wanting to know her, drawn to her inexplicably. All she seemed to learn, however, was the woman’s name. Zelda.

Her mother kept her away from the woman.

The sisters had a brother, Edward, who came to visit Zelda. He sat at her bedside for a whole evening and Mary pressed her ear against the closed door and listened to their hushed talk.

“It didn’t work…” Zelda’s enchanting voice, dark and melodious and so familiar, came to Mary.

Edward took Hilda home with him that night, wanting to give Zelda a night alone before they came to get her in the morning.

Mary was bereft at the idea of Zelda leaving her home. For she had not a moment to see or speak to this mysterious enigma, as if Hilda had somehow protected her. Mary watched Hilda as she left with Edward – Hilda glanced at her and her expression was quite suggestable and uncertain. As if she might know just what Mary would attempt that evening.

The light was still flickering beneath the door when Mary came before the bedroom. Her heart pounded in her chest; her hand shook as she reached up to fumble with the doorknob. This was an invasion and yet she felt compelled forward, her youthful pride and curiosity overcoming her.

The redheaded woman was sitting propped up in the bed with a novel in one hand and smoking tobacco in the other.

Her eyes looked up to the intruder. She jumped, as if in fear, the novel falling to the bedsheets, ash floating messily.

“Mary?” Her voice quivered.

Mary frowned. How would she know her name? Had her sister told her?

“Yes.” Mary nodded. “I don’t…I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Zelda put a hand to her heart, puffed at her tobacco and reached over to extinguish it in a dish at the side of the bed. “But…how are you here?” She sat up more fully, her body recovering.

“I live here.” Mary’s brow creased.

“This…these are your…parents?”

“Yes…well, I’m adopted.” Mary’s hand came to rest curiously on the bedframe, scuffing her foot against the wood of the floor bashfully.

“Adopted…yes, of course.” Zelda nodded. “Oh…look at how you’ve grown! How old are you now?”

“Nearly sixteen.”

Mary watched as Zelda’s eyes welled with tears. “Sixteen.” Zelda held out her hands. “Come…come here. Won’t you…won’t you stay the night with me? I’m…I’m awfully lonely without Hilde.”

And there was something in the warmth of Zelda’s request, something intoxicating about her scent, something so enthralling about her that led Mary to find herself climbing atop the bed and snuggling into Zelda’s waiting arms.

Zelda left the following day, pressing her lips to Mary’s forehead in parting.

She was twenty-one when a letter came for her father that the Spellman’s requested that Mary might come to live with them.

Mary begged her father to allow it.

It was but a fortnight before Zelda came to Mary’s room and asked if she might hold her as she had once long ago and it was but another week before Zelda’s lips taught Mary what it was to love.

But the Spellman’s home brought with it a curious scent of magic. Mary began to notice things, to see things as she grew. Zelda went away for long periods of time. Mary missed her. Could not understand her absences so that she went after her one evening…

The four of them sat around the fire and concocted a better plan. Mary was tucked up with blankets and kept near the fireplace and they all lavished her with love and care.

“I’m so tired.” Mary whispered.

“I know. Perhaps next time…” Lilith held her hand tightly.

Mary’s fingers trailed through Zelda’s golden locks that shimmered in the firelight. “It’s becoming too difficult for her….”

“I know.” Lilith sighed.

Zelda was asleep sprawled out atop Mary’s lap when she slipped into death.

Mary looked upon Zelda in the light of day, tracked the wrinkles that were forming about her eyes, on her forehead, about her lips.

Zelda…she had known her throughout her entire life and now she held the memories, she knew. She knew how it had been and what they had been and what they could be. All of them.

“I wanted it to work.” Zelda’s red eyes filled with tears again.

“Shh.” Mary took her into her arms, stroked her hair. “It shall… It…it must.”

Zelda sighed against her chest. “I’m bound to suffer because I must love you and serve her and I want both…you see? I want both.”

Mary nodded, knowing. “You shall have both.”

Zelda shook her head. “It can never be so simple.” And she angrily pulled herself from the bed, away from Mary. Wrapping a robe about herself, lighting yet another roll of tobacco. “It’s not so simple.” She rubbed at her forehead.

“Zelda…” Mary reached for her, but she shrugged her away.

“Go…go on to breakfast. They’re waiting for you.” Zelda did not turn to look at Mary as she spoke. Instead she stared distantly out the window, out upon the forest that reached for miles and miles behind their home.

Zelda was shut off from her, unreachable. No poking and prodding could change her mind now. She needed her space.

Mary bit her lip and begrudgingly complied with Zelda’s request.

Mary walked with heavy steps away from Zelda. But as she went, she could feel herself fully in her body. She felt strong, healthy, able…

She could not be dying…not now. Not yet.


	18. Chapter 18

Part 18

Mary fretted.

Zelda did not make an appearance for breakfast.

Sabrina, that darling, seemed taken by the fact that there were two Auntie Liliths at the table, though she seemed aware of the somber tone that was cast over the house. As if she knew that the arrival of her Aunt Lilith and Zelda’s disappearance meant something inexplicable, ominous.

Lilith took Sabrina out for a stroll while Hilda and Mary cleaned up after breakfast.

Mary submerged a plate into the water and scrubbed at its surface, scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until her hands felt as if they were pruning and the dish slipped away from her grasp and her body sunk over the basin and she felt hot tears trailing down her cheeks.

There was a hand at her back, warm arms wrapped about her. “There, there love.” Hilda whispered, but did not sound as calm and certain as she had at other times.

“I don’t want to hurt you…I don’t want to hurt her…again…” Mary whispered.

“I know, love.” Hilda nodded but was also crying.

“Oh, Hilda.” Mary sighed, sinking into the shorter woman’s arms. “It just doesn’t seem possible…I feel absolutely fine. Better than I’ve ever felt…”

Hilda nodded, patted Mary’s arm.

They pulled apart from one another and Mary reached down to cup at Hilda’s cheek, to wipe away a tear from her cheek with the pad of her thumb. “Oh…enough of this. It won’t do! It won’t do to walk around crying like this. How will we explain it to Sabrina?” Mary spoke almost angrily through her own tears.

“Yes…you’re right…” Hilda nodded but the tears continued trailing down her face and Mary bent her head and pressed their lips together.

“Oh Hilda. I feel…” she kissed Hilda again, salty tears upon her lips, “I feel that this time…” another kiss, Hilda whimpered, “this time feels…” a tender kiss, “it’s different, Hilda.”

Hilda groaned as Mary’s arms wrapped about her more tightly, soapy hands held open, dripping as Hilda was backed into the wall. As if she were infusing her every kiss with the promise that this time would be different. She had no way of knowing whether that was the case or not, but it was something she felt. And she needed Hilda to be there with her. She needed Hilda to be strong with her because Zelda would need the both of them.

She recalled what it was to love both of them. To have cared for both in their own unique ways. Hilda had always been internally stronger than Zelda, more steady and able to handle what it was that life thrust at her. It was Hilda who stood by, steadfastly, offering soothing teas and magic potions to help ease the pain when Mary slipped into unconsciousness. It was Hilda who held Zelda’s hand, who gave her what she needed until she was healed again after Mary was gone. And it was Hilda who had given Mary a mother; a sense of love and stability and warmth. Hilda had always been the steady beacon of light guiding her home and she wanted Hilda to know that she appreciated her for what it was she had given to her, to let Hilda know of her vast, all-encompassing love that she had for her and for her strength. And Mary wanted Hilda to know that she did not always have to be strong…

There was a shift in the house, the front door flew open and the sound of little feet racing through the living room pulled Mary and Hilda apart. Lilith came running in behind Sabrina and soon the duo was in the kitchen, out of breath and panting and Sabrina was wrapping herself about Hilda, asking about a snack.

Lilith looked up from catching her breath to study first Hilda and then Mary and seemed to know what it was that had transpired by their reddened eyes.

“Where’s Auntie Zee?” Sabrina inquired as she climbed onto a chair, Hilda giving her an apple.

“She’s not feeling well. Let’s let her rest, shall we?” Hilda ran her hand through Sabrina’s wild mess of hair.

Sabrina nodded, understanding somewhat. She bit into her apple and Mary felt Lilith’s hand on the small of her back.

She turned to look at her twin, still shocked by the sight of it. To see herself doubled like this. And yet they were not entirely the same. There were wrinkles that ran deep in Mary’s face that seemed almost nonexistent in Lilith’s. There was the way that Lilith’s eyes shimmered that was different from the way in which Mary’s shown. They were the same and yet so different.

“You’re feeling well?”

Mary nodded, wondering if she should be feeling ill already. She felt the same as she had the day before. Only it was her mind that had changed, been bent into remembering all the things that had come before…

Lilith worried her lip. “Zelda will come around, you know.”

Mary nodded. “I know.”

* * *

But Zelda did not come around the rest of that afternoon nor that evening. She did not emerge from her bedroom. Mary could smell the smoke, knew that she was up there brooding. She wanted to go to her, and yet even Hilda pulled her back from attempting it. “Give her some time, love.”

It was a day without Zelda and yet it felt like an eternity without Zelda. Since coming back into her life, it felt as if Zelda were running away from her. And shouldn’t they take the time that they had and use it wisely?

Lilith, Mary, and Hilda all tucked Sabrina into bed that evening and then Mary took Hilda to bed in her bedroom – for neither wanted to tempt fate disturbing Zelda in Hilda and Zelda’s shared room.

And it led to Mary undressing Hilda and worshipping her. She remembered, as she went, the very place that Hilda so loved to be caressed, the way Hilda would bend to her will if she were to kiss the tops of her hips, the way that Hilda liked to climb atop her, to dominate her, to play with her as she had with Zelda. And Mary gave this to Hilda. Indulged her decadently.

They were only hindered for a brief moment when Hilda paused.

“What is it?” Mary panted beneath Hilda, frustrated that the woman had brought her so very near to the edge and yet had paused as if losing her train of thought.

And when Mary turned her head ever so she saw the tears in Hilda’s eyes and Hilda shook her head, willing them to recede, to go away.

“Hilda.” Mary reached out for the woman. “What is it?”

“I’m…I don’t want to…h-hurt you.” Hilda whispered sheepishly, hips still gone on Mary even though she was fearful and upset.

“I’m not fragile, Hildegard.” And Mary toppled Hilda over, pinned her beneath her and kissed her relentlessly, as if needing to prove her strength.

When tiredness overcame them, Hilda wrapped her body about Mary’s. Her breasts pressed into Mary’s back, holding her close as they laid together.

Hilda slipped away into sleep. Mary could tell by the loosening of Hilda’s grasp, by the slight even wisps of cool air that escaped from between Hilda’s lips and landed against her back. 

But Mary could not sleep. She longed to see Zelda again, to assure her that it was alright, that they would be alright. She wished she had not left her that morning as she had. But Zelda would not have allowed her to stay anyway.

Perhaps now, in the calm of the night…perhaps if Mary were to sneak to her room, to crawl into the bed beside her…

Mary turned in Hilda’s embrace. She stared at the peaceful, serene woman. Mary liked to see her contented like she looked in serene sleep. Mary did not want to see her or anyone else crying over her. 

Mary pressed her lips lightly to Hilda’s cheek and carefully eased herself away from Hilda’s embrace. She recalled from their years at the Academy that Hilda could be quite a heavy sleeper. So that Mary and Zelda might steal away once Hilda was out and they would take up on their own adventure. Whether it was a stroll through the moonlit forest, skinny dipping in the nearby pond, pranking Faustus and his friends, or allowing Zelda to take her nearly anywhere and touch her…

Mary shivered at how clear the memories were.

She needed Zelda.

Slipping into a nightgown, Mary opened the bedroom door as quietly as a mouse. She knew the house so well, knew every creaky floorboard, every nook and cranny and crevice. She tip-toed down the hall to the bedroom.

She could tell that the light was extinguished from within. Had Zelda fallen asleep?

There was no hint of cigarette smoke.

Mary pressed her ear to the door, listening.

The room was quiet. There was not even a rustle of sheets, no indication that anyone was even breathing within the walls of the room.

For a moment Mary panicked, frightened for Zelda. Her hand willed the door open and she stepped into the room, light from the hallway flooding in to illuminate it. She looked upon the bed that she knew to be Zelda’s but found it empty. Hilda’s bed beside it was also empty.

Mary’s heart raced in her chest. Something rustled in the corner arresting Mary’s attention for a moment. She quickly realized, however, that it was only the wind from an opened window catching at a curtain. She watched it blow in the wind, dance and twist.

Zelda was not there.

Where was she?

Mary felt chilled by the breeze. She stepped back into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

She decided to make herself a cup of tea, for she knew that sleep would not come to her so easily that evening. Not when Zelda was missing. Had she gone out with Lilith? Would they be cavorting through the woods? It seemed so strange that Zelda should just disappear…

Mary was lifting the tea kettle to the stove when she happened to glance down. It was the slight glimmer of light that peeked through from between two floorboards.

Her heart hammered in her chest; the tea kettle very nearly slipped from her grasp. She steadied her hand with the other and let the kettle come to rest atop the unlit burner.

She came down to her hands and knees, pulling the robe away so that she could lean forward and press her eye to the hole she knew would be there in the floor.

It was not that she had not expected it, she should have guessed that it would be so. For she knew Zelda and had known her for years and years and this should not surprise her. But there was a certain jealousy that splintered her chest as she watched Zelda’s naked body straddled atop a tanned man whose hands cupped her, held her up. And her head fell back, red curls dancing over her sweaty, heated back, eyes closed, a pained expression on flushed cheeks.

And it was not only Zelda and this man, but Zelda and another brunette woman of devilish, buxom albeit aged beauty who grabbed at Zelda’s hair, pulled her head back so that she could press their lips together, her other hand reaching for Zelda’s breasts, to hold and fondle them roughly.

The gasp that escaped from Zelda’s lips, the little whines of pain and ecstasy.

The room was smoky. The room was filled with more than just the three of them. The room held all sorts of torturous wonders, naked bodies all moist and twisted together. Mary watched as a gorgeously muscular man placed something on his tongue and then cupped the back of another man’s head and pressed their lips sensually together. There was a pipe that another man inhaled from before blowing a cloud of smoke into a voluptuous blonde woman’s mouth.

Mary heard the little gasps of pleasure, bringing her attention back to Zelda who was so very sensitive, so very near to her edge. And the man beneath her was controlling her motions, was withholding her final pleasure while the woman at Zelda’s mouth straddled the man and twisted Zelda’s head so that she could lower her teeth to Zelda’s neck, leaving marks.

Mary groaned, rolled away from her peeping hole. She stood from the ground, dusting off her knees. She moved with confident assurance toward the door which she knew would be in the wall. And when she approached it, she found that it was audaciously kept ajar. As if Zelda had intended it.

But it only served to anger Mary. What if Sabrina had wandered down? She needn’t see her aunt in so precarious a state.

Mary opened the door and stepped inside, pulling it firmly closed behind her.

She descended down the stairs, the stench of tobacco and something she remembered but could not quite define rose to greet her. And then there was the scent of _her_. Of her darling Zelda who was torturing herself, who seemed to be on some quest to forget, to make it all go away.

Mary pressed into bodies at the bottom of the stairs. She felt hands at her robed body. An enchanting woman caught her for a moment, but she shook herself away. A man offered her a pipe, but she shoved his hand away.

It was the bed that she sought. 

And when her legs collided with the edge of it, and she found Zelda beautifully twisted, a tear crawling frustratingly down her porcelain cheek, Mary paused.

She found herself staring directly into brilliant sky-blue eyes.

Lilith.

Lilith was sitting in the corner of the room, smoking a pipe, body wide opened and naked.

Mary knew the body, for it was her own mirrored and reflected before her. The curve of supple breasts, the darkness between thighs, the stretch of taut skin, the muscular shape of the calves, the thighs, the upper arms.

They held the other’s gaze.

Until Mary heard a gasp of pain and felt her eyes tear to Zelda. Zelda whose neck was bleeding, whose legs were trembling, whose eyes were now upon Mary.

“M-Mary…” Zelda gasped. Pupils dilated, red-eyed, voice higher than usual. “You…precious…oh…” And Zelda was reaching for Mary and Mary took her into her arms, eased her away from the man beneath her, stole her from the older woman at her chest and helped her from the bed. And once Zelda was held up against her, Mary turned to find Lilith standing at her other side.

“Why does she do this?” Mary spoke through clinched teeth as they helped Zelda to the chair in the corner.

“She’s in pain.” Lilith offered as some way of explanation for Zelda’s self-destructive behavior.

“She’s on something.” Mary sighed, wiping at Zelda’s forehead with the edge of her nightgown until she felt a cool, wet cloth pressed into her hand by Lilith.

“She’s alright.” Lilith tried to assure her.

“She’s not immortal, she shouldn’t act as if she is.” Mary pressed the cloth against Zelda’s skin, feeling the remnants of some magic that she, herself, had once possessed. It came forth in currents through her fingers. It seemed she still had her own magic.

She watched as Zelda’s eyes began to uncloud each time her eyelids fluttered just a bit wider open. She was coming to. She would be alright. “I hate watching her do this to herself. I hate that it’s because of me…because I can’t…”

Lilith placed a hand on Mary’s, pulling her attention to her. “Don’t…don’t do that.”

“Well it’s helpless, isn’t it?” Mary’s eyes searched Lilith’s, desperately.

Lilith shook her head. “No. No…it will work. One day, it will work.”

Mary shook her head. “I want to get her out of here. Will you help me?”

Lilith cradled Mary’s cheek in her hand, pulled her close to her in the loud, crass room. “You have the power to do as you please.” And Lilith leaned in. Their lips met, pressed together in a gentle kiss.

When Mary opened her eyes, she found herself holding Zelda atop Zelda’s bed.

The cool summer breeze floated in through the opened window, cooling Zelda’s burning flesh.

Mary could not die now.


	19. Chapter 19

Part 19

The night breeze that fluttered through the window was cold and Zelda’s skin was on fire beneath Mary’s fingers.

She looked into Zelda’s hooded eyes, felt tears welling in her own. This was not what she had ever wanted for Zelda. Never would she wish this upon her.

“Stay with me.” Mary whispered, pressing her palm to the slick skin of Zelda’s breastbone.

Zelda’s whole being inhaled, as if life was breathed back into her body. She coughed hoarsely, her eyes fluttering wide open. Her skin had cooled. She looked up to meet Mary’s gaze. “Mary.” Zelda whispered.

“What are you doing to yourself?” Mary whispered, cradled Zelda closer to her. She ran her fingers through Zelda’s loose, damp red curls, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Zelda shook her head, reaching up to twine a lock of Mary’s hair about her finger. She hummed sleepily, watching the action of her hand. “You’ve always been so beautiful.”

“I haven’t.” Mary had never felt expressly beautiful. Seeing herself doubled in Lilith, however, she could see how Lilith carried their body so very well. Her own, however, seemed a lesser version of Lilith’s beauty. Mary’s body was allowed to age, to stretch, to grow. Lilith remained as she was. Aging gracefully, slowly, changes coming once a millennium.

“Yes. I always thought so.” Zelda insisted.

“Zelda.” Mary captured her twirling hand in her own, holding it, forcing her to look at her. “Why do you keep running from me?”

Zelda’s forehead wrinkled at this. Her hand stiffened where Mary clasped it. “Running from you?” She laughed, indignantly. “Why do I run from you?” Zelda pried her hand away from Mary’s, pulled herself into a seated position. Her naked body was then hidden away from Mary, for she reached for a robe that was draped over the side of the bed. She moved to stand up, but Mary reached for her. “I’m not going anywhere, let me get up.” Zelda insisted, pushing Mary from her.

Mary allowed her, gave her the space she so desperately needed, watched as she lit up a roll of tobacco and moved to slam shut the window, ending the cool breeze and the sounds of night. She sat down in a chair before the closed window, sinking down into its recesses.

Mary watched the whole while. Waiting…waiting for Zelda. Zelda who had never been good at expressing her internal world – or had it gotten worse with each new reincarnation? For Mary remembered how it had been at first.

The air between them was exhausted, tired. The emotions hung stale in the air.

“Running from you?” Zelda repeated the question as a cloud of smoke seeped through her lips. “Is that what you think this has been?”

Mary crossed her arms over her chest atop, settling into Zelda’s bed. She missed the warmth of the other woman. “Since you came to me – that night in the jail…you saved me, but then you avoided me. You carried on as if I wasn’t under the same roof as you.”

Zelda turned her head and puffed irritably. “You think that this has been easy for me?”

“Of course not.” Mary snapped.

“Besides, we both know that you enjoy it when I perform for you…”

“That’s beside the point.” Mary felt her body stiffen at memories that had only just returned to her. Of watching Zelda and Faustus in the study…of catching her mother Hilda with Auntie Zelda…of watching Zelda beneath Lilith’s strong, commanding body… “I only ever wanted you to be happy. When I was gone…I wanted to know that you were being taken care of.”

“I’ve been more than taken care of.” Zelda crossed her legs.

Their eyes met, Zelda defiantly daring her to object.

And Mary could not. She could merely sigh. “You’re getting a little reckless though.” Mary chastised her. Thoughts of that evening and that man beneath her, of the woman who had been torturing her enough to draw blood…

Zelda’s lips pressed tightly together. “Just what does that mean? You’ll only die again and then we’ll have to go through all this again and so what’s the point?”

“The point!” Mary cried. “Well, I do suppose there rather is not a point, now is there?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Zelda’s head shot up at this statement. Her eyes were wide.

Mary reached for a roll of tobacco for herself, coolly lighting it. She exhaled a cloud of smoke, feeling a bit as if she’d just won at something. But it felt a hollow victory. “You do care.”

Zelda’s eyes flashed. “ _Of course_ , I care. I’ve wanted for you to be with me for ages. To simply exist alongside me. But that would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it? It’d be all too easy to expect you to simply exist for longer than a mortal lifetime. Naturally, I must torment myself by loving you…you of all…oh…” Zelda realized herself. Realized the words that had just stumbled from her mouth. She fumbled for a moment, floundered in the discomfort of having said it.

“Zelda…” Mary could not help the slight, albeit fearful smile that curled at her lips.

“No.” Zelda held up her hand, as if to shield herself from Mary. She was protecting herself.

Mary ached for Zelda. Ached to just be able to go to her and to hold her. To calm her racing mind, to abate these horrible feelings of loss, to console her, to express to her that it was love that existed between them. Love that had always threaded them together through space and time. But Mary did not venture forward for she was afraid that Zelda might run from her.

So she watched her. Watched as the woman’s eyes lowered, a rough puff of her tobacco. A cough.

Silence as the admission slowly settled between them.

“Sometimes I wonder if I just enjoy the heartbreak of it all. Because that’s all it is…all it ever can be…isn’t it?” Her voice broke as she wiped furiously at her cheeks.

“No…no…that’s not what I want it to be. Not for you. Not for us.”

“Then why does it have to be this way?” Zelda’s voice was so small.

“I don’t know.” Mary frowned. “I’ve been working for years to end this, to…to reverse this curse, this…whatever this is…since meeting you…Zelda….Zelda, damn it. I love you more than you can possibly know.” Mary knew it to be true.

Zelda shook her head, wiped furiously at her cheek, inhaled on her tobacco. “It would have been easier, wouldn’t it? I could have simply married myself off to Faustus or Cynthia or Leviathan or…”

“No.” Mary shook her head. “No, you would have never been happy.”

“How do you know?” Zelda’s teary eyes met with Mary’s.

Mary inhaled on her own tobacco, eyes not leaving Zelda’s. Then she shrugged, simply gave in to Zelda’s ludicrous need to be right. “I guess I wouldn’t know. Perhaps you would have been.”

Zelda tore her eyes away from Mary, rubbed at her forehead. “No. You’re quite right. I wouldn’t have been.”

“You would never do anything you didn’t want to do. I know this much about you, Zelda.” Mary exhaled a cloud of smoke to the ceiling.

Zelda laughed hoarsely at this.

They stared at one another. Mary smoked her tobacco down to its end, crushing it out in a dish littered with Zelda’s other crushed out rolls.

She looked to Zelda who sat inhaling her own tobacco, staring absently out the window that overlooked the forest behind their home. Her eyes darted back and forth, as if she were searching for something. In the dim lighting Mary watched a tear slip down her cheek.

“Zelda.” Mary stood from the bed, tip-toed towards her, afraid that when she came to her, when she settled before her, that she would not allow her to touch her. But Zelda allowed for Mary’s hand to come to rest upon her knee. This small concession was enough to keep Mary’s own tears at bay. “Zelda, what is it? Did…did something else happen…?”

Zelda worried her lip.

“What is it?” Mary wanted to shake the woman before her. Always so tight-lipped, never willing to come out with it.

Something had happened. Something had happened that previous time she had been in this position with Zelda. She could feel the sensation of it, could almost remember the moment that they had shared together before Mary had slipped into unconsciousness…

Zelda shook her head. Her voice was hardly a whisper when she spoke. “You told me…” Her eyes fixated firmly upon the tobacco that burned in her hand.

“Oh.” Mary remembered. “But I didn’t…”

“Oh yes you did. You meant it.” Zelda spoke accusingly.

Mary shook her head, reached for Zelda’s hand, her wrist. “Listen to me, Zelda. I fully believed it would work this time. You must believe me. I would never…just…end it.”

Zelda inhaled raggedly, freed her hand from Mary’s so that she could lift the tobacco to her lips. “You told me that you would rather put an end to it…”

“I believed it would work.” Mary spoke firmly. “Zelda,” Mary rose to her knees, placing her hands at Zelda’s waist, forcing her to look at her. “Don’t you know how much I want to be here with you?”

Zelda’s eyes slipped closed and she shook her head.

Mary reached up, wiped an errant tear from Zelda’s cheek. “What?”

Zelda shook her head more forcefully. “You’re here and then you’re not. And time moves forward, Mary…time moves forward. And I’m no longer…I’m not the young woman you once knew…”

Mary felt her heart rip a bit at this. A pain shot through her chest. A memory of Zelda’s witch mortality. Voiced out loud. The fear of it clung to Zelda’s words.

Mary extinguished Zelda’s tobacco, took her hands into her own and held her firmly facing her. “I’m here now. _We have now_.”

Tears slid down Zelda’s cheeks. “No…”

“Be here with me, Zelda.” Mary clasped her tighter, her body shaking when Mary pulled her closer, held her tighter to her. A jerk of the body to keep her focused. “Be here.”

And Zelda sighed, cupped Mary’s cheek with her palm, thumb brushing against Mary’s skin. She pulled her in closer, held her tighter and their lips found one another. Calming, knowing, reassuring with each brush of lips, the way their bodies met one another’s, Mary leaning upwards to feel Zelda’s body against her own, Zelda’s arms wrapping about her in return.

“I’m here now.” Mary whispered through kisses, through touches, through caresses as they wrestled to the ground, as Zelda overtook her, claimed her, marked her, owned her. Until they laid panting together, bodies entangled and sweaty and exhausted.

Zelda clung to Mary, lips kissing lazy patterns against Mary’s skin. “I’m so tired.” She whispered.

“I know.” Mary held her closer, fingers sinking into her curls.

* * *

She put Zelda to sleep, all curled up and exhausted atop her bed. She had laid with her, a strange peace settling between them. Calm surrender had washed over them. Something had broken within Zelda, as if she’d given herself over to her fate all tied up with Mary as she was.

But Mary could not sleep.

It was so early in the morning of a day that had felt like it lasted an eternity. For her memories had returned to her and a spans of life had been returned to her bones. She was tired. And yet she could not sleep.

So she slid from Zelda’s embrace, pressing a kiss to her cool forehead, tucked her in gently, and slipped from the bedroom.

Some of Hilda’s tea might do her some good. For she needed to sleep, to rest her body, her mind. She knew that if she could take care of herself now then perhaps she could push off the inevitable.

Mary was unsurprised to find Lilith sitting in the kitchen with her own cup of tea.

Lilith hardly slept. She was an entity who required very little to get by. Her life would go on for eternity regardless of if she slept or not.

Her gorgeous head lifted, eyed Mary as she entered. “There’s some of Hilda’s chamomile and lavender tea on the stove. It’s still warm.”

So she had been expecting her.

Mary righted a mug and poured herself the proffered tea. She came to sit across from Lilith.

“Are you cross with me?” Lilith glanced at her over the rim of her mug.

Mary shook her head. She blew across the steaming surface of liquid. She was cross and yet she was not. She was wary of it all. She needed to know… “Why were you sitting there watching her…”

Lilith’s eyes softened. “I wouldn’t have let her get carried away.”

“It looked as if you were enjoying it more than anything.” Mary whispered.

Lilith’s eyebrows rose in amusement. “You really have come back to yourself, haven’t you?”

“I care about her and I don’t want to see her suffer. Not anymore.” Mary spoke firmly.

“And one more lifetime won’t hurt it…”

“But I don’t want her to go through it again. Her or Hilda. Or even Sabrina for that matter! It’s unfair. It’s never been fair.”

“No. No, I suppose it hasn’t. Not for you…not for me.” Lilith agreed, sat back, looking as if she had been a bit stricken. She toyed with her mug atop the table, shifting it about in a circle. “Perhaps I envy you.”

“Me?”

Lilith’s brilliant blue eyes flashed at Mary. “Yes, you. You get to forget. You get to die and be reborn while I must remember. _Everything_.”

Mary’s eyebrows furrowed. “At least you can be there for her…”

“Yes, but she’s always loved you.” Lilith smirked at it. “I’m merely a replacement for you. I keep it all going, now don’t I?”

Mary sat back then.

“There have been women before Zelda. High Priestesses, mainly. Women whom I’ve had to watch grow and learn and expand in such glorious ways and then they simply…die. Just like that. I know what it is to love someone who must die.” Lilith’s knowing eyes shown watery blue.

“Death is an unfair price to pay when everyone else must go on living.” Mary mumbled as she stared at her hands about her warm mug.

“But isn’t that the beauty of life? Of living here and now?” Lilith laughed dryly, eyed Mary. For she knew that she knew. She knew that she understood. “Of course, you know it better than I.”

Mary shook her head. “I want time with her. I want time with Hilda. I want to see Sabrina grow…I want…I want more than a short time with you. I know you and yet I don’t know you. I know Lucifer and yet I don’t know him. I _want_ to know.”

Lilith’s mouth lifted in a smile but her eyes betrayed her sadness. “I wish I could make it so.”

“We can.” Mary’s voice was a hopeful whisper. A plea.

Lilith sadly smiled. “Yes, perhaps.” Her hand fell over the top of Mary’s.

It was so warm, so inviting. It brought with it a strange sense of home, a nostalgia for carefree Spring days, the warmth of sun, the smell of earth. It was happiness that resided between them. And yet Mary only knew of it in snippets and short excerpts. They had been cursed to live together and yet apart. But she wanted to come back to her creator. She wanted them to be whole again.

“I know.” Lilith patted her hand. “I know.”

Mary looked down at their hands, watched as they came to clasp on to one another. “It’s so strange.”

“What is?” Lilith eyed her curiously.

“I don’t feel sick yet.”


	20. Chapter 20

Part 20

The sun shone brightly through the trees. A play of light and darkness as Mary trailed behind an excited Sabrina who had clasped her hand and was leading her further and further down the dirt trail. The forest about the home that had become ever more familiar with each passing day. The stream that burbled and sputtered which they hopped across using a pathway of stones. The bent tree that caused one to bend and climb beneath it in order to continue down the path. The rise of a small hill that shadowed one section of a trail, a cave that pushed out coolness from the recesses of its slight incline, a place which travelers could take shelter in amidst a sudden summer rainstorm.

They walked past all of these, traveling further and further away from the Spellman home – away from the heaviness of it all.

Mary’s lungs felt strong, full of air. Her limbs were taut and toned and well-muscled and moved forward with little effort. Her eyes had unblurred sight, could see the smallest detail etched into a leaf when they would happen to stop to take in the beauty of the forest around them. These were not the normal signs of illness and death that so often ensnared her upon finding Lilith again. Instead, it felt as if a regression was happening in her bones – as if her life was somehow unfurling, dwindling backwards. But it seemed impossible.

The forest, Sabrina’s presence, nearly made her forget all that was happening, that could happen. For the briefest of moments she allowed herself to find relief, release in the cool breeze that blew across her warm, sweaty neck. The sound of birds, of wind in branches. For a second she forgot. For a moment she recalled the pleasant ache between her legs from her morning’s activities. How Zelda had given herself to her when she’d awoken to find Mary at her side, stroking her hair. Their bodies had moved together, resigned to their entwined, albeit brief fate.

Mary collided with Sabrina, lost to the sensory memory of it. Lost to thoughts of the girl’s aunt.

It was a jolt, a surprise to collide with Sabrina as she had. Her body felt strange, a sudden energy pulsed through her that she had not been aware of before.

Sabrina reached out, steadied her. “Are you alright?” Sabrina asked, sounded older than she was. And she was wise beyond her years in her own way. Older than other kids her own age. For she possessed ancient knowing, passed down through her blessed bloodline, supplemented by her mortal half.

“Yes, of course.” Mary clasped her arms about Sabrina, held her close for a moment.

They had found themselves at a clearing in the forest. A patch of grass spread out before them and Sabrina took Mary’s hand, leading her to the center of it where she pulled her downwards, down atop the earth and they looked up at the sky above them, at the white clouds that circled overhead.

There was a horse. There was a cat. There was a fish. A star. A boat. A mountain. A goat. A heart.

They laughed together, Mary rolling onto her stomach as Sabrina did so they could rest their chins atop their hands and look at the other.

Sabrina’s eyes studied Mary, held her gaze as they looked at one another. “Why is everyone so sad?” Sabrina finally dared to ask, sitting up to twirl a blade of grass in her hand.

Mary bit her lip. How much to tell Sabrina? How much did she know? How much should she not know?

Mary wanted to be with this child for as long as she could be. She loved Sabrina as if she had come from her own flesh and blood. The girl was darling. The girl was a part of Zelda, of Hilda, of Lilith, and Lucifer, and Edward…it made sense that they had been drawn to one another from the beginning, that Sabrina should have taken to Mary, to coming to her home for tea and to read together. It all made so much sense that they would find one another, for there was such a strong force that wrestled and fought and broke through between them.

“I don’t understand.” Sabrina’s brow furrowed, a strand of her blonde hair falling into her eyes.

“Perhaps I don’t really either.”

Sabrina wrinkled her brow and propped her head up on her hands. “But they all think you’re going to die.”

Mary started at this. No one had made mention to Sabrina of her fate. Not like this! Not in such specific words. “How did you…but I…”

“It’s silly.” Sabrina sat up and moved closer to Mary. “You’re not going to die.”

Mary exhaled a shaky, uncertain laugh. “No…well…” She rolled onto her back to stare up at Sabrina who had inched closer.

Sabrina sat at her side, cradling her cheek in her hand. “You won’t die because I exist. And as long as I exist, you cannot die.”

Mary’s eyes widened. She sat up on her elbows. “How…how do you…”

Sabrina shrugged and looked down to the grass, grasping it roughly in her hand and ripping it from the earth. “My father came to me in a dream when I was younger. He told me to get close to you, that I would save you. I didn’t know how I could possibly save you, but he told me that together we would help one another to live. What you lack, I have. What I lack, you have.” And Sabrina tossed the grass she was holding, turning back to Mary whose eyes were wide. Who could not believe that the girl had so easily spoken, had shown that she had known this whole time!

“Sabrina!” Mary sat up, clasping her shoulders. The girl started for a moment. “Sabrina, oh…” And Mary was hugging her.

Sabrina wrapped her arms about Mary, clasping her more tightly as something strong passed between them, some force that Mary had never before experienced in her long, long life. It felt like a ray of light that burst and flooded directly into her chest. As if the sun had peeked, just for that moment, out from behind a cloud and shot its rays straight at them. It splintered in her chest, warmed her and Sabrina held tighter.

* * *

The wrinkles about her eyes had receded. She let her fingers ghost over the skin, touching as if to make sure that it truly was her face after all.

Hilda stirred in the bed.

Mary looked to her, smiled when the blonde woman’s eyes fluttered open and they saw one another in the early morning. She came to the side of the bed, pulling her robe more tightly closed about herself as she sat at the edge. She leaned down to press her lips to Hilda’s before Hilda’s hands came to her chest, pushing at her lightly.

“What time is it?”

Mary glanced to the clock on the wall. “Just about a quarter past seven.”

Hilda’s eyes widened. “Why did you let me sleep so late? Do you think Zelda and Lilith made it back last night? I have so much to do!” Hilda exclaimed as she rolled to the side of the bed, searching frantically for her robe.

“Relax, Hilda. It will all be in order.” Mary tried to soothe her, stood to retrieve the other woman’s robe from the chair where it had been tossed the night before.

“The bread will take all morning! If I don’t get it in…”

“Hilda.” Mary’s hands fell to her shoulders. “It will all go to plan.”

Hilda huffed and scurried out the bedroom door and down the hall to the stairs.

Mary tied the robe about herself, intent on seeing about Lilith and Zelda’s whereabouts. She crept to the door at the end of the hallway and hexed the lock open. Inside she found Lilith draped across Zelda’s naked body. The sight of it was breathtaking. It was as if seeing herself in just the same position, only she was able to remain an observer.

She closed the door behind her, for she found it rather inappropriate in the instance that Sabrina might come flying down and discover her aunties all tangled up as such. The door clicked shut and she noticed Zelda’s eyes blink slowly, sleepily open. A tired, happy smile curled on her lips.

“Mary.” She whispered, holding onto Lilith as she beckoned Mary closer.

Mary smiled, came to Zelda’s side and leaned down to press their lips together. “You made it back.” Mary cupped her cheek, glanced briefly to Lilith who was out like a light. Where ever they had been and to whatever Coven business they had attended, it certainly looked as if it had been an exhausting venture.

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss this day for anything.” Zelda was stroking Mary’s waist, was staring at her unabashedly wanton. And Mary liked the knowledge that Zelda had had Lilith the night before and yet still wanted more. “Is Hilda already in a tizzy?” Zelda asked calmly as her hand toyed at the silk of Mary’s robe, pulling it upwards so that her hand could touch the naked side of Mary’s thigh, still clasping onto Lilith’s naked form that was still wrapped about her.

Mary nodded, stroked red hair from Zelda’s cheek. “I feel I should help her get it all in order. I suppose I let her sleep in too late.”

“She forgets,” Zelda pulled Mary closer so that she had no other option but to lean down and kiss Zelda. “That we have magic.”

Mary laughed against Zelda’s lips.

“I’ve missed you.” Zelda whispered as her hand wandered innocently between Mary’s legs.

“I can tell.” Mary held herself up, staring down upon Zelda. Zelda whose wrinkles had grown ever deeper but did not deplete her beauty. From the voracious glimmer in her eyes that held Mary captive, made her open herself to Zelda’s learned hand.

“Well good morning, my love.” Lilith’s voice broke the trance, pulled Mary’s attentions to her.

Mary turned to look at Lilith as Zelda’s fingers made her legs tremble.

“You’re a gorgeous thing in the morning. Isn’t she, Zelda?” Lilith pushed a strand of hair from Mary’s cheek, letting her hand move to cup at Mary’s behind.

“Absolutely exquisite.” Zelda breathed.

Mary’s legs nearly gave out until she found herself pinned beneath Zelda, Lilith at her side, pressing kisses against her lips as Zelda gave to her a release she had not known her morning needed.

They laid in Zelda’s small bed, all piled together in a gorgeous heap.

“I think that perhaps we should make ourselves presentable. After all, today is about Sabrina.” Lilith finally yawned and stretched, creating a chain reaction in the others.

Zelda took to smoking as Mary felt her feet hitting the ground again. It was good to have Zelda home again. To have Lilith with them, especially for this special occasion.

“Yes.” Mary nodded, her robe falling back into its rightful place about her sensitive body. “Yes, I do think so.”

“I suppose I shall awaken Sabrina and prepare the ritual bath. It seems only right, as the eldest living Spellman.” Zelda decided as she blew a cloud of smoke from between her lips.

* * *

Sabrina stood at the edge of the river.

A fire burned and crackled. The night sky was pitch black. The moon was full and bright and dripping with blood.

Lucifer stood in the midst of the dark, flowing liquid, Lilith rightfully at his side.

Zelda and Hilda held one another on the bank. If anyone were to ask, Zelda would swear that the tears in her eyes were some reaction to the forest about her. Hilda cried openly.

Sabrina looked up. Her hand reached out, slid into Mary’s so that their fingers threaded together.

Mary glanced from the girl down to the crisp, clear water that flowed over her feet that stood perched atop a stone. She looked up to see Lilith, to see Lucifer who smiled upon her.

Sabrina squeezed her hand. They walked forwards. Hand in hand, wading deeper and deeper into the cool water. Mary’s breasts tightened, nipples pressing at the thin silk material of her baptismal gown.

They walked and walked until they were waist deep.

Mary watched as Lilith and Lucifer blessed Sabrina, imparted upon her the rights and abilities of a full-blooded witch. And she was pushed deep beneath the water so that its current flowed across her, flowed and flowed until she sprang upwards, water pooling down her sides and she inhaled as if for the first time. A newborn babe.

She shivered in the cool night air and smiled at Mary.

Mary felt Lilith and Lucifer’s hands upon her, listened to the sacred words that came from their lips.

And then she was submerged beneath the water. Crisp, cool. Her body was buoyant, light in the grasp of the liquid shroud. Her eyes closed as she was submerged, laid upon her back.

The water rushed over her, washing her clean.

Her eyes flashed open and she saw the moon in the sky floating overhead.

She was alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! I really appreciate those who followed along with all the strange twists and turns. I know I left things open-ended in a way, but please read into this what you will!! 
> 
> Thank you to my WONDERFUL friend @KatyaTrixie whose idea this was originally and she let me run with it. So really, you only have her to blame for this. All complaints can be directed towards her. :D


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